They are commemorating 200 years since Honest Abe was born. If you though 2009 was bad just wait for 2010.
Don't exactly know what you mean by that - they're only doing one redesign for '10, as far as I know. For the OP, they made 4 different reverses of the cent, one for each period of his life. Birthplace, Formative Years, Professional Life, and Presidency. Any more specific questions? Joe
Joe I have a question for you. It is my understanding that the 2009 pennies went back to the old composition which was some sort of copper and tin alloy, NOT what we've had since 1982... the copper plated zinc. I got a few rolls of 2009 pennies from an ebay auction and it looks like a few of the coins on the end of the roll were scratched pretty bad in a circular pattern. I'm assuming the seller's method of rolling the pennies is what scratcehd some of them. He agreed to replaced the scratched coins. My observation is that the 2009 pennies that were scratched severely appear to haze been scratched down to a zinc-like looking layer. Is this just an illusion or were only certain 2009 pennies struck in the 1909 composition? I'll try to find the pics, but it deffinitley looks like copper clad zinc.
The 2009's which were included in mint sets were done in the original alloy of 95% copper. The standard circulation strikes are of the current composition - mostly zinc. So you do in fact see zinc under the copper plating on the circulating strikes.
Here are some pics that I took to e-mail the seller so I could get replacements. You can see the zinc in a few of the pics. No zinc could be seen in this last coin. The scratch wasn't deep enough.
Thanks for the info. I don't know if you can tell from the pics, but in person you can deffinitely see the zinc underneath the copper.
I have also found a good number of spotted cents this year - not zinc coming through, but black spotting on the coin. Ugly stuff... Joe
