With all the silver colored clad memorial cents that show up and are attributed to plating, I have to wonder if some of them are genuine mistake coins. Part one of question: are the planchets copper plated before or after the penny is struck and Part two: and in either case couldn't a few miss the copper plating session resulting in silver colored cents?
It isn't so much that the cents miss the plating, its more that the copper sometimes doesn't bond well to the zinc core and the plating flakes off.
There were zinc planchets that did not get plated at the mint prior to striking. The latest date I have seen is 1986. I think they got the logistics figured out a bit better. There are some that have partial plating too. Don't ever buy an unplaced zinc Lincoln Memorial unless you can see original luster, which cannot be done after striking. The zinc-plated pieces done after will not have the original luster, but will be a bit duller.
That sentence should read - There were zinc planchets that did not get plated prior to striking. The mint has purchased the cent blanks from private companies for decades.
Correct. The mint doesn't, and never did prep them in-house - they are subcontracted out. All planchets for the new cents would be fabricated by outside vendors and delivered ready to coin. A contract was awarded July 22, 1981 to the Ball Corporation of Greenville, Tennessee for press-ready planchets to be delivered no later than November.
