1982 zincs are not pleantiful

I have found so few in comoarrison to coppers. And am date on either copper or zinc has been difficult. I just found my third small date. Anyone else have such luck as mine?

 

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From my experience, zinc cents are definitely not as common as copper cents, but I wouldn't call them rare nor scarce. Same with small dates. With that said, if you find either one in high grade I would keep it.

 

pleantiful?

 

No, just not plentiful. well, I am rather excited when I find one.

 

I throw all of my '82 Lincolns in a jar and will sort them when I get around to it. The '82 (P) Zinc Small Date from has always been hardest for me to find, while the '82 (P) Zinc Large Date has always been most easy to find. There are still lots of BU examples of the Large Date floating around in circulation, but they often have ugly spots on them due to the copper plating issues which plagued the mint for much of that year.

 

I have wondered just how one goes about getting a Brilliant Uncirculated coin from circulation? Should that not be an AU coin?

 

"Brilliant Uncirculated" is a state of preservation, and not a coin's "status." This is probably the most common misperception among new collectors.

For example, you'll get BU coins from the current year in change on most days. A lot of these coins come straight from brand new rolls that your grocer or other merchant has received from their bank via their armored carrier via the mints. If your checker just threw a brand new roll of these coins in their drawer, and you got one, then that coin is in BU condition. Handling the coin is what will lower the grade and cause wear.

 

What @John77 says is correct. This is one reason the term "mint state" is slightly better than "uncirculated" to describe coins without wear. We're pretty much stuck with the term, though, so it's better to just get used to it.

 

This kind of illustrates the above... these came out of my afternoon batch of 8 CWRs. They are much more lustrous than the scans show, by the way.

 

I have rolls of them saving for the grandkids

 

Although neither would get mint status.
Stained. Details grade.
Market grading and ANA are dif.

 

I usually snag all 82 small dates they are the hardest to get. Usually when you find them they are collectible. Even the zinc showing, on the high points.

 

Those are scanned photos & do not reflect what the coins truly look like very well. I don't have a camera/phone right now which can take pictures that show the true mint luster. The coin on the right has the exact same coloring as my slabbed MS-65 RD 1995 Double Die Obverse sans the carbon spot on the Lincoln Memorial. As for the coin on the left, there are plenty of coins from original rolls which look just like it. The mint had issues plating the coins during most of 1982. The coin on the left is typical of what one of the uglier ones looks like.

 

Is it bad that I don't bother looking at whether the date on a coin is large or small? I usually just do the sound test to see if the 82 cent is plated or solid and just sort like that.

 

I wouldn't say it's bad. As of now you're not really missing out on anything. You can also go back through them later, right?

 

Well I roll up all the copper ones and keep those but then I dump all the copper coated crap

 

I keep the BU coins no matter what the date as there seems to always be a demand for them, and some carry quite a premium.

 

I guess I just don't find BU zinc cents too much, aside from shield cents. I did find a really good looking 2008 D the other day

 

Customer wrapped rolls often produce older BUs. I recently ran into a batch of them which had a bunch of BU coins from 1982-1989. Unfortunately, the wheats had already been picked out.

 

You are missing the possibility of the big DDR, only found on the zincoln.