Why you would think Thad would say that "it's almost impossible to find the SDC 82P in BU condition?"
It's not a "key date", marketing crap. Nobody knows the exact mintage of each type (zinc/copper). As I recall, the Mint simply kept track of how many were made in a year, the type was not of concern...it is all about volume. Afterall, it is money regardless of how meager a penny seems. I have read many discussions on the topic, you can probably find plenty with google. Again, I am old....as I recall...and my theory of: The first production sets were the LDC but that was only temporary as they prepared to make the switch to copper plated zinc. The mint was having all kinds of trouble with making the zincs, this delayed the change. A pretty huge number of LDC's were produced in the mean time to meet demand. In preparation for the transition the mint changed the copper dies to small date. IMO, they ran these to test new (or just refreshed) dies for the transition. Since this was a "test", I believe these to be the lowest mintage. After that they started with the SDZ's. I think the same dies that they used on the SDC. Just a few machine adjustments with those dies and it was started. It wasn't long into production before they changed back to the large date design, making the SDZ also a lower production coin. The year finished with the large date designs. Now, I'm happy to hear someone with a better memory than I on how this went down but...like I said...theory.
I was hasty and incomplete - a high quality BU roll (and NOT misidentified). I had to return quite a few rolls I bought from ebay. Most sellers don't seem to know the real difference between the types. LOL Then you also deal with a lot of improper storage. You can find an apparently pristine on the outside, OBW, sealed roll but when you get it and crack it the coins are all corroded. It's more common than you think.
I've seen those sets before, I think I actually bought a few. LOL I doubt it's "bogus". The coin types are likely correct. It's the grade of the coins. All those sets I've bought and seen have 64 and below coins in them. Which harkens back to what I've been saying for a long time: Yes, there were BILLIONS produced, but the vast majority of them are junk. I've been searching wide and far for quality examples - my fingers are permanently stained black - coin shows and the internet are virtually worthless. Just nobody cares about the poor memorial cent. Dealers laugh at you if you ask. If they have them, you have to go look in the bargain bin: "yeah, there's a few in there".
@physics-fan3.14 said: @TJ1952 None of them are rare or scarce.[/QUOTE] Then why would someone pay to have these things slabbed?
People often do inexplicable things. ANACS regularly (a couple of times a year) offers "free grading" for previous customers -- you can submit one or two coins, and "all you have to pay" is the cost of shipping and insurance to and from them. That typically ends up being $10 or so per coin, but it doesn't seem to slow people down.
With regard to 1982 mintages, I just went through a roll or two of 1982 cents (mostly P, a few D) that I'd set aside over a year or two. (Like many people, I set aside copper; it'll never repay me enough to be worth my time, but it placates the OCD.) I didn't keep an exact count (OCD isn't always the boss), but I think only 20% or so of the coins I checked were zinc. I reached the point where I'd put the coins on the scale three at a time, because usually all three would be copper. It seems I've read elsewhere that there were more copper than zinc coins minted in 1982. For those of you who have checked a lot of coins, what proportions have you found?
Well, huh. I just wandered off to Numismedia FMV to check prices, and they don't break out any of the 1982 varieties -- date style or composition! That seems quite odd. Then again, they dismissively lump all cents after 1933 into "Modern Lincoln Cents", so perhaps some of the folks behind the scenes just don't take Lincoln cents especially seriously...
Yeah, hit the BACK TO THE MAIN MENU link at the top of the page. There are a lot of things about Numismedia that bug me -- it's slow to display even on a fast machine, it chews up my battery when I'm unplugged, they made poor font choices for legibility, things hop around on the page while it's loading making it hard to click on the right thing -- but it's certainly a valuable resource.