A rare 1943-S bronze cent was recently sold by Legend Numismatics of Lincroft for $1 million.  

The pretty penny was sold to legendary coin collector Bob R. Simpson, co-chairman of the Texas Rangers baseball club, according to Professional Coin Grading Service.

He paid $1 million for the finest of only four known 1943-dated Lincoln cents mistakenly struck in the wrong metal at the San Francisco Mint. 

Cents were supposed to be of zinc-coated steel that year, and those grey-colored 1943 cents are quite common, however, a few pennies were erroneously made of bronze, the metal composition from the previous year.

Legend President Sperber then personally delivered the coin to Simpson at his Fort Worth, Texas office, according to an account in a news release from PCGS. 

"Mr. Simpson said, 'It's a beautiful coin.'  As he held it he reminisced about the 1943 'copper' Lincoln cent he found in change when he was a youngster, but that turned out to be a fake," said Sperber. 

PCGS President Don Willis said, "The United States Mint switched from making cents in bronze to zinc-coated steel in 1943 because copper was a strategic metal needed during World War II.  By error, some bronze planchets made it into the hoppers at the Philadelphia, San Francisco and Denver Mints, were struck and released into circulation.  These have become the most famous and valuable of all off-metal coin errors," said Willis. 

In 1944, a few Lincoln cents were mistakenly struck in zinc-coated steel even though the mint resumed cent production using copper alloy.  Simpson also owns the finest collection of 1944 cents struck in the previous year's metal composition.

A representative who answered the phone at Legend said nobody could comment on the sale of the rare coin until next week. 

Read more about the sale at the PCGS.com website.