Derek M. writes:Â My girlfriend brought home a weird-looking penny. It looks like it is made of gold (it is very very yellow), but it isn’t any heavier than a normal penny. It has no minting initial on it. The year is 1990. What gives?
Cents must be the subject of electrolysis students all over the country. The Coin Doc gets lots of questions about silver or gold plated cents. What you have is a plated cent that is commonly used in advertising promotions. Promoters give out gold plated cents because people are attracted to a cent that looks like gold. But there are no gold or silver cents, never were. At 3.11 grams, a cent weighs a tenth of a troy ounce. If the government made them in gold each cent would be worth about $120 at the present gold price!
You can prove that it is really a standard copper and zinc cent by weighing the coin on a gram scale. A standard 1990 cent weighs 2.5 grams. One minted on a gold flan would weigh considerably more than that.
Since gold is so ductile, the value of the plating is nominal. A neat curiosity though!
