Hi, everyone - I just received my '09 satin copper Lincoln cents in mint set packaging (I bought a set of 8 in two strips cut from the '09 mint set) and noticed that the '09 copper cents look brighter to me than those from early 1982 and before. Now, I'm just a little too young to remember what a brand-spanking new copper cent looked like when it was first struck because I was born in 1981 - the last full year U.S. copper cents were made for circulation. When first made, were the "old" copper cents as "brightly colored" as the 2009 copper cents are? I swear the '09 coppers look almost as bright as the zinc-core Lincoln cents I'm used to seeing. Perhaps I'm just used to seeing "red" coppers because, again, even the most recent copper Lincoln cents (pre-1983) have almost 30 years of toning.
Well you will just have to keep waiting for one of the old guys who do remember. To me the old coppers - pre-1982 were not the same color as the new coins. In reality back then I was not into collecting - even though I always looked at my fathers proof sets.
Either that or they contain 95% copper like the mint says they do. It's printed on the Certificate of Authenticity the coins come in, or see the Mint's web site for the set: http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wc...ctId=15003&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10211
