steel cent question

Hello all,

Yesterday me and my family went shopping. I went into a store called J-
R's. There they sold two coin sets called (IIRC) "Rare U.S. Pennies,
Nickels, and Dimes". The other set was called "Coins of WWII". Both
sets had steel cents, Liberty nickels, wartime silver nickels, indian
cents, and Mercury dimes. The steelies caught my eye. They seemed to
have really bright luster, which if I remember what I've read, is a
sign of a reprocessed steel cent. However the reverse had tiny spots
sticking out though this luster, which I've assumed is rust. Since
this is happening, could this be a sign that the cent could be really
a genuine UNC piece? Due to all of this confusion, my coin intuition
told me to stay away from both sets.

Thanks for your help.

Joshua Holman
Havelock, NC

hoshie wrote:
Hello all,

Yesterday me and my family went shopping. I went into a store called J-
R's. There they sold two coin sets called (IIRC) "Rare U.S. Pennies,
Nickels, and Dimes". The other set was called "Coins of WWII". Both
sets had steel cents, Liberty nickels, wartime silver nickels, indian
cents, and Mercury dimes. The steelies caught my eye. They seemed to
have really bright luster, which if I remember what I've read, is a
sign of a reprocessed steel cent. However the reverse had tiny spots
sticking out though this luster, which I've assumed is rust. Since
this is happening, could this be a sign that the cent could be really
a genuine UNC piece? Due to all of this confusion, my coin intuition
told me to stay away from both sets.

Thanks for your help.

Joshua Holman
Havelock, NC

Use the force Luke! Your intuition is correct

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:50:38 -0700 (PDT), hoshie
wrote:

Hello all,

Yesterday me and my family went shopping. I went into a store called J-
R's. There they sold two coin sets called (IIRC) "Rare U.S. Pennies,
Nickels, and Dimes". The other set was called "Coins of WWII". Both
sets had steel cents, Liberty nickels, wartime silver nickels, indian
cents, and Mercury dimes. The steelies caught my eye. They seemed to
have really bright luster, which if I remember what I've read, is a
sign of a reprocessed steel cent. However the reverse had tiny spots
sticking out though this luster, which I've assumed is rust. Since
this is happening, could this be a sign that the cent could be really
a genuine UNC piece? Due to all of this confusion, my coin intuition
told me to stay away from both sets.

Thanks for your help.

You can buy uncirculated steel cents for under $2. -S mint steel cents
may be somewhat more. Even rolls of BU steel cents are affordable.

I have a couple steel cent sets. Each has 3 -P, 1 -D and 1 -S coin.
They were a gift years ago, so I'm not sure of the exact cost. Though
having seen the price of similar coin sets in catalogs I imagine they
were overpriced by at least a factor of 2. However, they are nice
coins and I'll probably end up picking three (P,D,S) when I get around
to putting together my 1941+ Cent set.