 In December 1943 , the Treasury Department announced that the steel cent would be discontinued after 1943 , to be replaced with coins containing 95 % copper and 5 % zinc ( pre @-@ 1943 cents contained the same percentage of copper but might also contain tin in place of some of the zinc ) . The Treasury also stated that some of the metal for the new coins would be obtained by melting down small arms ammunition shells . However , numismatic writer Shane Anderson , in his study of the Lincoln cent , doubts that any shells were melted down , except perhaps ceremonially . After the war , the Treasury quietly retired as many steel cents as it could from circulation , while denying it was doing so — no public admission of the program was made until 1959 , as the Treasury feared that were it publicly known , the coins would be hoarded . A few 1943 bronze cents and 1944 steel cents are known to exist , and are valuable . Only one 1943 @-@ D cent in bronze is known ; it sold in September 2010 for $ 1 @.@ 7 million . One of the four known 1943 @-@ S cents in bronze was sold to Texas Rangers baseball team co @-@ chairman Bob R. Simpson for $ 1 million . There are also many cents dated 1943 that were coated with copper to imitate the genuine rarity . These pieces may be distinguished from genuine off @-@ metal strikes by the use of a magnet . The planchets from which the 1943 and 1944 off @-@ metal strikes were coined were most likely concealed in the coining equipment and were struck when coinage resumed after year end . The cent returned to its prewar composition in 1946 . 
