I bought it because it struck my fancy. There wasn't much chance that it was real, but it's a pretty obscure piece to fake and the seller clearly wasn't trying to hype it. I don'tlike encouraging counterfeiters in the abstract. On the other hand, there really wasn't any reason not to bid for under $5 delivered. I was expecting a plated piece from a seller who assumed thatanything "white" had to be aluminum. I flipped out when I took it out of the envelope and saw it really was aluminum. Then I calmed down when I looked at it more closely. It was a funlittle bit in the middle there. :-)

It weighs 1.005 grams, so it's definitely not copper. Unfortunately, it's also definitely not authentic. The dies are HEAVILY polished, with massive detail loss across the board. Lookespecially at Lincoln's coat, which blends into the field. There is no sign of VDB initials on the truncation of the bust. None of these features match the example in the Smithsonian.

Additionally, all of the lettering has a "mushy" or "pitted" quality that is never seen on US Mint products. There are good pictures of the real 1974 aluminum cent in TheAuthoritative Reference On Lincoln Cents by Wexler and Flynn

I think this is a spark erosion counterfeit, where the surface of the die was polished smooth to remove the pitting in the fields. That polishing removed much of the details, and wasn't ableto remove the pitting from the design elements that were recessed on the die. Once you have counterfeit dies at all, you can strike them on anything.

I wonder if whoever made it knew what he was doing, or if it was an accident that he ended up with the one date where an aluminum cent would have mattered.

Now that I have this one, I see several other similar listings. I probably wouldn't have paid even the $5 if I was aware of the others. Bad on me for not doing my research first, although Istill don't mind for $5. I do feel a little bad for whoever paid $200+ for the similar listing cited in the thread on the PCGS boards and in the Coin World article.

To read the complete article, see:
Recent eBay win by a collector is a fake 1974 aluminum cent(http://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2017/05/1974-aluminum-cent-fakes-appear-in-bay-sales.html)

To read the complete lot description, see:
USA America - Liberty Lincoln 1 Cent 1974 Aluminium Ungewöhnlich (http://www.ebay.com/itm/112384155743)

To read the Collectors.com discussion forum, see:
I just bought a 1974 aluminum Lincoln cent on eBay(https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/981202/i-just-bought-a-1974-aluminum-lincoln-cent-on-ebay)

To read the Smithsonian article, see:
UNITED STATES, 1 CENT, 1974 (ALUMINUM)(http://amhistory.si.edu/coins/printable/coin.cfm?coincode=3_01&coinside=front)