Shiny 1986 coin

HI,

I have a very shiny 1986 penny minted in Denver. I read a previous post that someone had the same type of penny but it looked quite worn. The poster mentioned it could have been dipped in acid. Mine looks practically brand new. Would it be from a high school science experiment? Is it a die w/o copper? I DO have a gold colored penny from 1982 and I read that is likely from a hokey electrolysis experiment

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Anyway, I'm attaching a photo of BOTH coins. Sorry for the quality. The one on the left is the shiny silver-like coin. The other looks yellow-gold. Any help for this newbie would be appreciated.

Do you live in the US?

They're shaved pennies. Shaved pennies are basically pennies that once had a copper plating but were literally shaven to the zinc core so that way the shaver gets to use the penny plus keeps the bullion from the copper.

I think the case with your pennies is that someone cleaned up the zinc and made them look nice. They aren't worth much... well, a cent.

Hi SmartOneKg, yes I do live in the US. I never heard of "shaved" pennies. How does one shave a penny without doing damage to the penny? It looks scratchless, except it looks a bit funny around the "D" mint stamp.

Some people are good at it I guess.

Maybe it's a mint error. If you're taking a picture of them you should've set it to macro so the pennies look clearer.