How much is a Silver penny worth?

Answer 1

If you mean a real silver penny from England in the 1600s or 1700s, then quite a bit, but don't start planning your retirement around it. If you mean a 1943 US Cent, it is steel, not silver, and worth between 5 cents and $3.00.

It's also a common practice to plate ordinary 1-cent or 1-penny coins for use in jewelry and so on. Sometimes these coins are accidentally spent and cause a lot of confusion when someone gets one in change.

Finally, because US cents have been made of copper-plated zinc since mid 1982, a "silver" cent with a modern date can also be one of these coins that doesn't have its copper plating. That most often happens if someone dipped the coin in acid to remove the outer layer of copper; these coins have no added value. But it can also happen that a zinc penny accidentally slips out of the Mint without being plated to begin with; this is a mint error that can be worth anywhere from a few dollars to about $100 depending on its quality. To be certain which you have, the coin should be inspected by a trained professional.