silver penny

jprospectorg

Can anyone tell me if they have ever heard of a U.S. Lincoln 1998D silver penny. All info would be appreciated. Thanks.

nwcs

Do you mean silver or an unplated zinc cent? I find a off-metal planchet error to be extremely improbable in 1998 for a cent. However, a cent planchet that skipped copper plating is unlikely, but possible.

Steve27

It's probably silver plated, since none were produced by the mint. The only other alternative would be a cent created out of just zinc without the copper coating. Do you have a scan?

BlueCole

i saw a struck on silver dime planchet cent on ebay a while back. was about 900. i've got a struck on clad dime planchet , but yours might be umplated. post a scan, or look at this thread:



B. planchet thread

jprospectorg

It's not plated, but it could be zinc or one that slipped by. Have you ever heard of such a coin?

nwcs

They do happen, though it's very unusual. The copper plating process occurs after the blanks are run through the upset mill. (so after the annealing) It is not supposed to ever happen, but there is always that rare chance and I have seen a picture or two. And there are cases where bubbling or other planchet defects cause the copper plating to flake off. Thing is, I will say next to impossible it is struck on wrong metal because cent planchets are produced here in TN and shipped in finished form to the mint for striking. If an off-metal error occurs these days, it's almost a certainty that it is a mint employee purposely doing it.

Neil

jprospectorg

No. I don't have a scanner. that's on my list of things to get.

BlueCole

yeah, i have, but the only way you'll be able to tell is to weigh the coin. and for that, you'll need fairly precise scales. look at the thread i've linked to in my first post. down at the bottom you';ll see two pictures, under the pic of the baby. does yours look like that?

B.

PS, can you see a clad layer when you look at the side?

B.

jprospectorg

Yea but in a MS condition. Could it be worth anything? What would the step be to take?

jprospectorg

I did not reply about the clad layer. It does'nt have one. It's smooth like a normal penny.

coppercoins

A few comments:

1. Unplated zinc cents aren't extremely rare, and do occur. The problem comes in the fact that people have figured out a way to strip the copper from a struck zinc cent revealing the zinc core. Since the copper plating on a cent is very thin, the result is essentially a normal looking cent without the copper, These can be and often are confused for the real error. The only way to tell the difference is to use good magnification to look at the devices on the coin. If they are thinner and sharper than usual, you likely have a faked error. At any rate, it takes someone who has experience with both to tell the difference, to be realistic.

2. Weighing unplated cents is more or less a waste of time. First of all, if the coin has been faked as described in #1, the weight will be within a hundredth of a gram one way or the other from the actual weight of the zinc core. Secondly, the copper plating on a zinc cent is so thin and weighs so little, unless you have a digital scale with phenomenal accuracy, you wouldn't be able to weigh the difference anyway. The copper content of a sinc cent comprises of only 2.4% of the overall composition of the cent. Since the overall weight of the cent is 38.58 grs +- 1.54 grs (grs - grains), that would make the difference between a cent with the copper and one without the copper less than the 1.54 grs tolerance difference. In other words, it is somewhat normal for a copper plated struck cent to weigh the same as another one without the copper shell.

3. If the coin is an overplated normal cent, telling it to be a fake is quite easy. Most of the details on the coin will be slightly fatter and duller than they should be, especially under good magnification. Often it is difficult to tell at first, but flaws in the processes will usually leave some hint behind if you are otherwise a good detective - air bubbles in the plating that split, unevenness in the plating as it dries, and areas where the plating pools in cavities of the coin (such as inside small openings of the letters B, R, etc.) will usually raise red flags as to its authenticity.

4. An image to show just how ugly the real thing can be - a testament to my inability to tell the difference, I thought this one was a fake until an error expert got to look at it.



In closing...these are much more common in the earlier years of the zinc cent than they are now (1982-1990). Reports of recent examples are rather scarce, and if it happens to be the real thing, quite valuable as well. If you have the money to blow, send it to ANACS for verification if after reading this you still think it's the real thing.