1943-P Lincoln Wheat Cent

Common date

The one year the Lincoln cent was not made of a copper alloy. Copper was needed for wartime shell casings, so the 1943 cents were struck in zinc-coated steel, which is why they look silver and why they are the coins most often mistaken for something rarer than they are. All three mints struck them and they are extremely common.

Mintage

Business strikes: 684,628,670
Mint: Philadelphia (no mintmark)
Mintage rank: 131 of 140

Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives. Cents circulated harder and longer than any other denomination, were spent rather than saved, and were melted and lost in numbers nobody recorded. On this series in particular, mintage is a poor guide to how hard a coin is to buy.

About this figure

A very small number of 1943 cents were struck in bronze, from planchets left in the presses from 1942. Those are genuine rarities and were never part of the reported mintage. They are also the single most faked U.S. coin, usually by copper-plating an ordinary steel cent.

Scarcity tier

Common date

Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.

This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.

Documented varieties

1943 bronze

Struck in error on a leftover 1942 bronze planchet. A handful are known across the three mints.

Widely recognised varieties only. The VAM reference catalogs thousands of die marriages across these series; the absence of a variety here does not mean none is documented elsewhere.

Mintage explains less here than in any other series

Mintage explains less about this series than about almost any other. Cents were struck in enormous numbers, past a billion in several later years, so only the 1909-S VDB falls below the key-date threshold that applies across this site. The coins that are genuinely hard to buy well are hard for other reasons: the 1914-D because nobody saved it, the 1922 No D because it is a die state rather than an issue and is easily imitated, the 1943 bronze and 1955 Doubled Die because they are errors that were never part of any reported mintage. Read the notes on those dates rather than the tier column.

What to check before buying

1Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, not on the listing. A photograph of a label is not verification.
2Match the coin in the listing photographs to the coin described on the certification record, including the grade and any variety attribution.
3Look for cleaning: unnatural brightness, fine parallel hairlines in the fields, and a flat, lifeless surface under angled light.
4Check the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. Added and altered mintmarks are the most common silver dollar alteration.
5Read the seller's return policy before bidding or buying, and confirm it covers authenticity and grade disputes.
6A steel 1943 cent is magnetic; a bronze one is not. That single test exposes the overwhelming majority of plated fakes in seconds.
7Steel cents rust. Many have been reprocessed and replated to look new, which is not the same as an original uncirculated coin, and the certification record will say which it is.

Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation. Read the grading guide.

Verify a certification number

If a 1943-Pis offered as certified, look the number up on the grading service’s own site and confirm the date, mintmark, grade, and any variety attribution match the listing. A photograph of a label proves nothing on its own.

PCGS cert lookup NGC cert lookup ANACS cert lookup

Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.

Find a 1943-P for sale

Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.

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Common questions

How many 1943-P Lincoln wheat cents were minted?

The Philadelphia Mint struck 684,628,670 1943-P Lincoln wheat cents for circulation. That is the 131st lowest business-strike mintage of the 140 date and mintmark combinations in the series.

Is the 1943-P Lincoln wheat cent a key date?

Coin Curator labels it a common date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The one year the Lincoln cent was not made of a copper alloy. Copper was needed for wartime shell casings, so the 1943 cents were struck in zinc-coated steel, which is why they look silver and why they are the coins most often mistaken for something rarer than they are. All three mints struck them and they are extremely common.

What varieties exist for the 1943-P Lincoln wheat cent?

Widely recognised varieties for this issue include 1943 bronze. Struck in error on a leftover 1942 bronze planchet. A handful are known across the three mints. Variety attributions should appear on the certification label rather than only in a seller's description.

What should I check before buying a 1943-P Lincoln wheat cent?

Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. A steel 1943 cent is magnetic; a bronze one is not. That single test exposes the overwhelming majority of plated fakes in seconds.

Why do sources give different mintage figures for the 1943-P?

Mintage sources

Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-08-01. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.

LandOfCoins, Lincoln wheat cent mintage — Business strikes and proofs in separate columns. Used as the business-strike figures here.
Wikipedia, Lincoln cent mintage figures — A separate article from the main Lincoln cent page, which carries no table. Its Philadelphia figures for 1909-1915 add that year's matte proofs into the business-strike total.
USA Coin Book, Lincoln wheat cent — Consulted to break disagreements. Rounds the 1953 and 1954 figures to the nearest million, so it is a tiebreaker rather than a primary source.

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