You might want to invest in a current issue of the "Red Book". It has tons of information that you can look up for yourself.
As rickmp said, it was costing more than $0.01 to make a cent out of bronze (actually brass). So alternatives were looked at. The same problem happened in the early 1970's, and they considered aluminum, but that was rejected. The price of copper fell in the mid-70's, so they shelved the plan since it wasn't a problem any more. In the early 1980's, copper went back up. The aluminum idea wasn't brought up again, and copper-plating zinc was cheap and practical. No one wanted copper-plated steel. The change occurred in the middle of 1982, so you get some in brass and some in Cu-plated zinc. And, due to striking issues with the zinc, they changed the lettering to accommodate the strikes, so we have large and small dates.
As previously stated it boiled down to costs. In 2013 the Mint lost $55,000,000 in the production and distribution of cents. That's down $3,000,000 from the previous year.
Very nice facts !!! Thank you . Iam hunting a 1983 3.1 lol and I was coming across the 1982s with the different scale results
So far all of the copper cents that should be zinc have been from Denver. So I would stick with the 1983-D. There is the 1982-D small date copper. 1 example The 1983-D copper. 1 example But there have been a few others mid and late 80's and early 90's, all Denver I believe.
