seemingly common coins that are not easy to come by....

Cam40

add your choices here.

despite the enormous numbers minted I find it somewhat odd that I dont find more 1982 small-date copper Lincolns in roll searches.
I,ve only found a few from the thousands of cents I,ve searched over the past few years of active searching.

Is it common knowledge in the hobby that these, as well as the other six 1982 Lincoln varities, have been hoarded by dealers and or speculators?

Where the heck are these coins anyway.

Cam40

and the one i,m speaking of isnt even the one considered the key variety of the group.

must be a regional thing.

maybe i,m too far south for the `82 P small-date coppers to be common.

BigE

Really tough for me is PCGS MS 66 Booker T's and Wash-Carvers, they were considered dogs in the past--------------------------BigE

JohnZ

The regional thing applies. Here in Boston, I would estimate only 20 per cent of your pocket change is going to be D mint.

mgoodm3

here in OR, about 1% of change is P mint.

cladking

In time there is good mixing of the mintmarks across the country for those coins
which actively circulate. The cents do not really circulate much so this mixture is
extremely slow. In fact a cent makes so few transactions before it is lost or de-
stroyed there isn't much mixing of the post 1979 coins.

mgoodm3

I looked through several thousand cents that I had accumulated and found probably 5 to 10 P mint zinc cents. Sad part is that most of the good errors are from the Philadelphia mint.

Neptune

Is that Hendrix - I saw him live - awesome! Here in TX we get mostly D mints - I trade P mints with someone in another state on a regular basis. Speaking of 82 zinc cents - I can not tell the difference.........can anyone give me a clue?

Cam40

Thats Jimi alright.
You saw him live? I,m jealous. I,ve only seen all the films and such of him.

How to tell a zinc from copper cent?

I do the drop test. Its easy and usually works.
Take a known zinc cent and then take a known copper cent.
Drop the copper on the counter and hear the ringing sound it makes.
Drop a zinc cent and hear no ring at all.
Other than weighing the two and seeing the slightly heavier weight of a copper cent
the drop test works for me most of the time.

Copper cents weigh atleast 3 grams where the zincs weigh only about 2.5 grams.

mgoodm3

For weighing I took a popsicle stick and a round pen. Put two older cents on there, balance them and mark the center of the popsicle stick. Leave one cent on there line up the line with the pen and if you put a Cu one on there it will balance, the zinc ones won't budge it.

Neptune

Thanks for the tips - will try all those after dinner!

dcarr

Circulated 1926 (plain) Peace dollars.

PS: The "ring" test also works for telling the difference between the 80% silver and 50% silver 1967 Canadian dimes & quarters.

mgoodm3

The ring test is only good for coins you don't mind dropping.