I have a small collection of steel pennies I got from the American Historic Society and noticed that some of them have the Denver mark, some have the San Fransisco mark, but the (I assume) Philadelphia-struck pennies have no mint mark on them. Anyone know why? I've already verified their authenticity with a magnet (since steel pennies are the only US coins that are attracted to magnets) so I know it ain't fake.
Why do some steel pennies have no mint mark?
All the cents from 1793 to date, struck at the Philadelphia mint have no mint marks. It wasn't till 1942 that the nickel finally got the P, only because they had changed to the war time alloy which had silver in it. After the war it left again until 1980. In 1980 the P showed up on the other denominations. So from 1793 -1980 no P, except for the war nickels.As for the cent still no P. Why they put the P on the nickel due to it's change and not the cent, maybe because the cent stuck out as being very different and the nickel did not.
Reply:The D and S cents have less mintages Report It
Reply:Mints do not alway add a mint mark. Philidelphia, for example, did not add mint markings to most of what they produced.
Your steel pennies were almost certainly minted in Philadelphia, and this was not an oversight, but something they did to "stand out" over the other minting places.
It does make the coin slightly more valuable, but again, since Philadelphia chose to do this habitually, not much more valuable on steel pennies.
hayes
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