1982 Lincolns

1234567890

I've been saving up 1982 Lincolns untill I could get a sensitive enough scale to tell apart the Zinc and Copper ones. Well I got a little impatient and decided to sort them into Large date and Small date. After going through the 200+ pennies, I discovered only 2 small dates. I was wondering if anyone knew how many Large to Small dates were made? Were their just a 100 times more Large date Lincolns than small dates, or did I just run into some increadibly bad luck?

nwcs

I'm not sure, but it'd be lots of each.

BTW, you don't need a sensitive scale to tell the zinc from copper. Just a simple balance is enough. Basically just place a copper cent on one side of the balance and the coin to test on the other. If they balance, it's copper. If the copper one goes down the other is not copper.

1234567890

I have thought of that before, but I don't have a scale like that. I was just thinking of getting a cheapy electronic kitching scale at target or something.

kranky

You don't need a scale. Lay a pencil on a table and balance a popsicle stick on it.

1234567890

Well anyways, is they a big diffrence in the number of Small date 1982's to Large date 1982's?

richbeat

In 1982, between the Philly and Denver mints, almost 17 billion cents were struck. The red book does not give a breakdown of how many are large date and how many are small date. The sheer numbers of cents struck would indicate a lot of each type. However, I rarely ever see the small date and tons of the large date. I'm at a loss for an explanation as to why that is. The small date cents were first struck on September 3, early enough that there should be more out there than what I've seen.

On a side note, for what it's worth: I think the 1982 large date cent is the ugliest engraved date I've ever seen.

Trivia: 1982 cents without mint mark were struck as follows: 7,135,275,000 at Philadelphia, 1,990,005,000 at West Point and 1,587,245,000 at San Francisco.

richbeat

Shamika

1234567890,

You don't need a scale. If you want to identify the zinc cents from the copper cents just flip it as if you were playing "heads or tails".

The coins with a zinc core will have a dull sound while the solid copper coins will have a nice ring. Try it with a pre-1982 cent as compared to a post-1982 cent. The tonal difference is significant.

coppercoins

<< <i>1234567890,

You don't need a scale. If you want to identify the zinc cents from the copper cents just flip it as if you were playing "heads or tails".

The coins with a zinc core will have a dull sound while the solid copper coins will have a nice ring. Try it with a pre-1982 cent as compared to a post-1982 cent. The tonal difference is significant. >>



I second that emotion completely. There's no reason to need to weigh them, balance them, or anything like that. They make a completely different sound when dropped, and before you get to it, all the crap about damaging them is just that...crap. It doesn't take a damaging throw to tell a 5 cent BU coin from a 5 cent BU coin. All it takes is letting them settle on a table, and that never damaged a coin.

As for what the mint made, they didn't keep track of anything other than the number made per mint - period. They didn't differentiate between zinc and brass nor did they keep track of large to small date. The large were struck first and the small last, but that's the only record as to order or number. It took collectors to figure out there were only seven of the eight possibilities in composition and date size...the mint didn't track that either.

1234567890

I have never though of tossing the coins before and listening. There is a huge diffrence. Well, that's 5 down and 2 more varieties to go. It seems like it's gonna take while to get the last 2. Small dates don'y seem all that common.

Side Note: Of the 100+ Zinc coins, only 1 had the D mint mark. Wierd.

coppercoins

The P mint small dates are undoubtedly the most difficult to find....zinc especially.