# What's the significance of 1943 pennies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-significance-of-1943-pennies/526978 "2010-01-30T01:44:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-significance-of-1943-pennies/526978/21 "2010-01-30T23:36:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Try to find a 1913 V nickel instead, there are only 5 of them. I think the main appeal of the '43 coppers is that they superficially look like perfectly ordinary coins (well, they’d be wheaties, but other than that), so it’s plausible to hope that there might be a few still in circulation. The 1913 V nickel, though, doesn’t look anything like any current coin, so they’re probably all in collections or destroyed already. At best, you might hope that one is in the stash of an amateur sporadic collector who doesn’t know what they have, but you’ll never get one in change from the store. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-significance-of-1943-pennies/526978/22 "2010-01-31T01:38:54Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > We probably buy a thousand steel cents every week in our coin shop. Average condition we pay 5-10 cents each, sell for 20 cents. Wow, those took a dive. For some reason I still have my 2000 Krause World Coins book, which lists the 1943D MS-65 at $8.50. However the 2008 Blue Book shows it at $1.25. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-significance-of-1943-pennies/526978.md?page=1)