Since the dim crowd was so helpful let's see if the cent guys can enlighten us. So RD is red. That's a good thing when it comes to the cents. Then there is BN for Brown is pretty common. I get that. Then the IHC is short for the Indian Head Cent. Now what is CN when it comes to cents? What's the deal with that? Any other terms when dealing with cents that we should know about? Hey I'm a half dollar guy so just looking to bone up on the small (and large) cents.
First off, RB = Red/Brown i.e. >5% to <95% red. The only CN I am familiar with in regard to cent would be copper/nickle. The first small cents (1959 - 1964) were made of copper/nickle alloy.
LC - Large cent FE - Flying Eagle cent BN - Bronze (used when discussing 1864 cents they come as either CN or BN) VDB - Designers initials for the Lincoln cents, 1909 comes with and without the initials. C - Copper, some 1982 cents come made of copper (see next) Z or Zn - Zinc, 1982 cents also come made mainly of zinc so you may see 1982 Zn. LWC - Lincoln Wheat cent LMC - Lincoln Memorial Cent CAM - Close AM of AMERICA WAM - Wide AM of AMERICA
Not a term, but a simple way to distinguish between a copper 1982 and a zinc 1982 is to flip the coin like playing heads or tails. If the coin 'rings' it's copper, if it gives an empty thud sound, it's zinc. I found this is quicker than rigging a make-shift scale and less damaging then dropping your coins on a hard service. Of course if you have a scale that measures to 1/100th of a gram, just use that weight of a copper cent: 3.11g weight of a zinc cent: 2.50g
