So a respected & elder member of the local coin community said there is a rare variety of 95% copper lincoln memorial penny. Supposedly it was an error from when a mint employee fed a copper planct in stead of the zinc-copper alloy that they were transitioning to that year. Is this a real variety or is hejsu messing wit me like when you do flooring and tell someone to get the tile strecther? This variety is not found in any of the guides i own. Does any member have or have held/owned one of these. The supposed way to tell is by weighing them. A regular copper plated zinc will weigh 2.5g whereas the 95% copper will be 3.5g. I feel like a crazy person looking for this coin...
1983 copper cents have been found and they do sell for a very nice premium. However, this would be considered an error rather than a variety.
well if there was a 1943 copper circulating until just recently then the efforts are not invain. thank ypou for for the confirmation!
Do we know how rare they actually are? Unlike the 1943 copper or 1944 steel cents, the 1983 copper cents aren't easy to casually spot, and they haven't gotten wide publicity outside the collecting community. I can usually distinguish zinc from copper cents by feel and appearance without checking the date, but not very reliably, and I pay more attention than most people who handle change. I would bet that a 1983 copper cent could circulate for a long time before someone noticed it.
I have been looking for that 1983 penny for years now by weighing them and I won't stop anytime soon. Extremely rare coin but worth the search.
