1974 Penny Value: The Aluminum Cent and What Yours Is Worth

A 1974 penny is worth one cent in circulated condition, as of October 2026, and about $15 to $18 in MS65 red by price guide. The famous 1974 aluminum cent is a Mint experiment that the US Mint says no one may lawfully own or sell, so it has no market value for a finder. Real money sits in top grades: MS67 red coins sell for roughly $45 to $200, and a 1974 MS67+ red brought $2,938 at Stack's Bowers.

The Mint struck more than 8.8 billion cents dated 1974 across Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco, so the coin in your hand is about as common as a coin can be. Most of the questions we get about 1974 pennies come from the aluminum story, and from silver-looking coins that people hope are aluminum. Almost all of those are plated or damaged ordinary cents, and a kitchen scale settles it in seconds.

Quick answer

• A circulated 1974, 1974-D or 1974-S penny is worth one cent, as of October 2026.
• Uncirculated red coins are worth about $15-18 in MS65 and roughly $45-200 in MS67, with rare higher sales.
• The 1974 aluminum cent (about 0.93 grams) is treated by the Mint as government property; the one Denver example that surfaced was returned to the Mint in 2016.
• A normal 1974 cent is bronze and weighs 3.11 grams. A silver-colored 1974 that weighs 3.1 grams is plated, not aluminum.
• A 1974-S struck by error on a Philippine aluminum planchet sold for $19,200 at Heritage in January 2023, a different and legal coin.

How do you value a 1974 penny, step by step?

Read the mint mark, weigh any coin that looks unusual, then judge color and wear.

1. Find the mint mark. It sits directly below the date on the front. No letter means Philadelphia, D means Denver, S means San Francisco. San Francisco struck both business coins and proofs in 1974; proofs have mirror fields and came in proof sets.
2. Check the color. A normal 1974 is bronze, 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc, so it looks orange-red when new and brown when worn. If the coin looks silver or gray, go to step 3 before anything else.
3. Weigh it. A normal 1974 cent weighs 3.11 grams. The experimental aluminum cent weighed about 0.93 grams, roughly a third as much. A gram scale that reads to 0.01 gram is all you need. A silver-colored 1974 that weighs about 3.1 grams is a normal cent that has been plated, often in a school science project, and it is worth one cent or less.
4. Look for listed varieties and errors. No major doubled die is listed for 1974 in the main price guides, so doubling claims deserve caution. Genuine mint errors such as off-center strikes, clipped planchets and broadstrikes do occur and are judged on their own merits.
5. Decide whether it is uncirculated. Look at Lincoln's cheekbone and jaw, and at the steps and columns of the Memorial on the back. Any flatness, dull high points or brown wear on the high spots means circulated, and circulated means one cent.
6. Judge the color on uncirculated coins. Graders call copper cents red (RD), red-brown (RB) or brown (BN). Nearly full original red is what the price guides mean when they quote MS65 to MS67 figures.
7. Count the marks. At MS67 and above, a coin has to look almost untouched under a loupe. Coins from rolls and bags usually grade MS63 to MS65 because of contact marks. Our coin grading scale guide explains the steps.
8. Price from sold results, for the same mint, grade and color, not from asking prices.

What is a 1974 penny worth?

Figures below are PCGS price guide values and recorded sales from Heritage, Stack's Bowers, David Lawrence and eBay, as of October 2026. Mintages are the US Mint's published figures.

Two things stand out. First, the gap between MS66 and MS67 is large: guide values jump from about $22 in MS66 to about $100 or more in MS67, because few 1974 cents survived without marks. Second, prices at the top are erratic. Heritage sold 1974 MS67 red coins for $67 and $77 in April 2023 and one for $576 the following month. A single sale tells you little; look at several.

The 1974-S business strike is the scarcest of the three regular coins at about 409 million, and it carries a modest premium in gem red. Its smaller mintage does not make a worn one worth more than a cent.

What is the 1974 aluminum penny, and can you own one?

It is an experimental cent struck in aluminum when copper prices rose in the early 1970s, and the Mint's position is that nobody may own one. According to CoinWeek, the Philadelphia Mint struck more than 1.4 million aluminum cents dated 1974 using a 96 percent aluminum alloy. Samples went to members and staff of the House and Senate banking committees and to other officials. Congress did not approve the change, the Mint recalled and melted the pieces, and it could not account precisely for every sample that left its custody.

The Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection holds one example. The only Philadelphia piece known in private hands is the Toven specimen, reportedly found by a US Capitol Police officer after a government official dropped it; PCGS has graded it MS62. The Mint has not publicly moved to recover it, but in a 2009 letter the Mint's chief counsel wrote that no one may lawfully circulate, sell, buy or hold these coins because they remain property of the United States.

What happened to the 1974-D aluminum cent?

It went back to the Mint. In early 2014 its owners publicized a 1974-D aluminum cent that PCGS had authenticated and graded MS63, and it was consigned to Heritage's April 2014 Central States sale. The Mint wrote to the owners in February 2014 that it had never issued aluminum cents or transferred title to them, and the coin was withdrawn before the auction. After a lawsuit, the parties settled in March 2016 and the owners returned the coin and gave up all claims, as CoinWeek reports. Mint records did not show that Denver had been authorized to strike them at all.

The practical lesson for anyone holding a "1974 aluminum penny" is simple. Even a genuine piece cannot be sold openly at auction, and the odds that a silver-looking 1974 from a jar is one of them are close to zero.

Which other 1974 pennies are worth money?

Apart from gem uncirculated coins, a few genuine errors are worth a premium:

• The 1974-S on a Philippine aluminum planchet. Heritage sold this error for $19,200 in January 2023. It was struck by mistake on an aluminum blank meant for a Philippine coin, not as part of the Mint's experiment, which is why it is treated as a legal error coin.
• Off-center strikes. A coin struck partly off the blank with the full date visible is collectible; a strike around 50 percent off center with a readable date sells for roughly $100 or more, while a slight 5 to 10 percent shift is worth about $20.
• Broadstrikes, clipped planchets and struck-through errors. These typically sell for roughly $10 to $35 when genuine.
• Gem proofs. Most 1974-S proofs are worth a few dollars. Only near-perfect PR70 Deep Cameo examples bring real money, and they need a grading service holder.

What does not count: silver plating, coins that have been run through a press or flattened, coins with heavy toning, and "double heads" or other trick coins. Our guide to error coins worth money explains how a real error differs from damage.

A worked example

Say you find a gray, silvery 1974 penny with no mint mark in a jar of change and wonder whether it is the aluminum cent. First, weigh it. If the scale reads 3.08 grams, the coin is bronze with a coating on top, probably zinc or tin plating from a classroom experiment, and it is worth one cent. If it reads under 1 gram, the coin is something very unusual, and the next step is a grading service or an error specialist, not an online listing.

Now say you find a bright, fully red 1974-D in an old roll. Under a loupe the cheek is clean, but there are a few small marks in the field. That is likely an MS64 to MS65 coin, worth about $7 to $15 by guide. Grading would cost more than the coin is worth. Only a coin that looks nearly flawless, a candidate for MS67, justifies the fee.

Common mistakes

• Calling a plated cent aluminum. Silver-looking 1974 cents that weigh about 3.1 grams are plated. Aluminum would weigh well under a third of that.
• Assuming aluminum means a fortune. Even a genuine experimental piece is claimed by the Mint, and the one Denver example that surfaced was surrendered.
• Pricing from asking listings. Online listings for 1974 pennies at thousands of dollars are ordinary coins. Use sold prices.
• Pricing a roll coin from the MS67 column. Most uncirculated coins from rolls grade MS63 to MS65 and are worth a few dollars.
• Treating strike doubling as a doubled die. Flat, shelf-like doubling at the edges of letters comes from the striking press and adds nothing. A real doubled die shows a rounded second outline with notches where the images meet.
• Cleaning the coin. Cleaning strips the original red and destroys the value of a gem.

How WorthPic reads 1974 penny photos

WorthPic runs on the newest and most capable AI model available, tuned for exactly this kind of identification. From photos of both sides it reads the date and the mint mark under it, judges whether the surfaces are bronze, plated or toned, looks for wear on Lincoln's cheek and the Memorial columns, and notes visible errors such as an off-center strike or a clipped edge. It then gives an honest value range in US dollars with a most likely figure and says which extra photo would settle the question. What it cannot know from a photo is weight, and weight is what separates a plated cent from an aluminum one, so it asks for a photo of the coin on a gram scale. It cannot assign a grade like MS67. It identifies and estimates. It does not authenticate, grade or appraise.

What to photograph

• The front straight on, in even daylight, with the date and the space under it sharp.
• The back straight on, for wear on the Memorial.
• The coin on a digital scale showing the reading, for any coin that looks silver or unusual.
• The edge, for a coin that might be on the wrong planchet.
• A close-up at an angle if you see doubling, so the shape of the extra outline shows.

When to get it looked at in person

A worn 1974 cent needs no expert. A coin that weighs far less than 3.11 grams, or one that appears to be on a foreign or wrong planchet, should go to PCGS or NGC, which authenticate and attribute errors, or to a mint error specialist first for a quick opinion. A bright, nearly flawless red coin may justify grading if it could reach MS67; for anything less, the fee is more than the coin is worth. A local coin dealer or coin club can look at a coin in a minute. For other dates worth checking, see what pennies are worth money, and for the early-1970s doubled die years, our 1971 penny value and 1973 penny value guides.

Sources

• CoinWeek: 1974 aluminum cent, Mint experiment and legal status: the number struck, the Toven and 1974-D histories, the 2016 settlement, the Mint's legal position (2009 letter from its chief counsel) and the $19,200 1974-S error sale.
• PCGS CoinFacts: 1974 Lincoln cent, Red: mintage, MS65 to MS68 price guide values and auction records for the 1974 Philadelphia cent.
• PCGS CoinFacts: 1974-D Lincoln cent, Red: the same for Denver.
• Wikipedia: Lincoln cent: the bronze composition used from 1962 to 1982 and the 1974 aluminum experiment.