toven specimen

Toven Specimen.

Toven Specimen, The Toven Specimen, or coin as some people refer to it as, is a independently held aluminum 1974 Lincoln cent pattern, one of the 1974 aluminum cents.

Thus, the Mint issued the manufacturing of an aluminum penny as a prototype to distribute to members of Congress in order to gauge their reaction. It never went into circulation and all but two of the pennies were confiscated by the government. One is housed at the Smithsonian Institution, the other, known as the Toven Specimen, belongs to the Toven family.