Now coin collecting is a small hobby of mine and the coin to rule all coins is the 1974 Aluminum Penny. You see out of the 1,571,167 coins to have been produced only a few remain, in fact to date only one has ever been found. Known as the Toven specimen, an officer working at the U.S. Capitol Building saw a Congressman drop what he thought to be a dime at the time and when he tried to return it the Congressman simply told him to keep it. It was later found in 2001 and certified to be an authentic 1974 Aluminum Penny which was given the grade of AU58 (AU stands for About Uncirculated) by the ICGC, the Independent Coin Grading Company.
You see, back in the 1970's copper was getting expensive and it was proposed to make them out of aluminum. So the mint made up a batch of over 1.5 million while the bill was being discussed in Congress to make it legal to put the aluminum coins into circulation. Yet the bill failed to get passed and thus the mint had to melt down the entire batch of coins. But before the coins were destroyed the U.S. Mint had distributed some of the coins to some Congressmen in order gain support for the legislation. These few coins are suspected to never have been returned and thus the search for the 1974 Aluminum Penny continues.
Now the Toven specimen resides within the eternal wall of the Smithsonian Institute. However, if any of the others pop up the U.S. Secret Service has the authority to confiscate them. As it turns out the U.S. Mint doesn't have any authority to take back the coins, which are considered United States property as they were never issued, and thus have entrusted the Secret Service to uphold the law. So if you find a shiny silvery colored penny from 1974 that weighs a lot less than normal pennies you might just have found one of the elusive Aluminum Cents.
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