Are Your 1982 Pennies Worth Money, Large and Small Date Varieties Explained

[Music] [Music] 1982 was an important and fairly interesting year for the Lincoln penny accounting for the regular issues from the Philadelphia San Francisco and Denver branch mints then adding to that key varieties unknown errors for the day there were more than a dozen coins to search for in this one year alone some of them quite valuable as well but which ones are worth money and which are simply ordinary pennies how do you even tell the difference and why did this chaotic situation came about to begin with well 1982 was an important transitional year for the Lincoln penny the US Mint was desperately trying to stay ahead of a rising production costs for quite a few years at that point the penny in particular was a cause of concern the mint had been using a lot lean 95% copper alloy or brass composition to Menten nation's 1 cent coin ever since 1864 with the issue of that year's Indian Head cent of course the problem was that the price of copper had been steadily increasing over that time 30 years prior in 1952 it cost a mint 11% of face value all $1.10 to produce 1,000 wheat pennies by 1982 that cost had risen to eight dollars and 61 cents or nearly 86 percent of the coins actual monetary value with that trend only set to continue from there on out in order to curtail these rising costs the mint decided to switch from the established 95% copper composition to a more cost-effective zinc core coin with only a small copper coating instead the new plungers reduced the amount of copper in each coin from 95 percent to own two and a half percent making them considerably cheaper to produce by 1983 the cost to produce 1,000 pennies had fallen to six dollars and thirty five cents or about sixty three percent of face value so then how do you tell the difference between the brass or copper penny and the newest zinc pennies well the simplest way is just to weigh the coins the older copper coins should weigh 3.1 grams was the newer copper coated zinc coins coming in at exactly 2.5 grams instead and you don't need expensive equipment to do that either you can get a cheap digital gram scale or a diamond scale online for really only a few dollars and you'll never have to wonder again I'll go ahead and include a link in the description as an example if you want to have a look at something like that from there the mint ran into a new and exciting problem the metallurgic properties of the newest zinc plated coins were causing problems on the men's production floor because zinc is much harder than copper they were not striking up to this same degree essentially the dyes had to strike the new zinc planchet with greater force or strike them multiple additional times in order to produce a coin with this same quality as the older brass coins slowing down the men's hourly production rate and as a result again increasing the cost per thousand coins the mint solution at this time was to alter the dyes very slightly so that production can again increase the new designs had a slightly lower relief and letters that are slightly smaller that would require less pressure to fully strike up these new designs would also increase each working dies lifespan again decreasing production costs for the mint these newer designs are what are today known as the small date variety with the older designs conversely known as the large date variety Toodee noticeable difference brought onto the date now the curious thing is that both large and small date varieties exist for both the older copper coins and the newest zinc coins as the mint was still working to deplete its existing stocks of copper plant shirts before the year ran out the only exception to this was at the Denver Mint where great care was taken to ensure that no small date varieties were struck from the now obsolete ninety-five percent copper plant shirts leaving no less than seven issues struck for circulation in a single year for the philadelphia mint or the coins with no mint mark these ran the gamut with both large and small date coin struck in both copper and zinc as already mentioned the coins with a diamond mark from the denver mint were only released in bronze composition for the lodge date varieties with both large and small date coins in zinc although keep the denver mint in mind as i'll be coming back to that in just a little bit then as was customary for the time the San Francisco mint didn't mint any pennies for circulation but it produced special proof quality coins for collectors bearing the S mint mark on these issues now these were only struck in copper and then only with the lodge de dies to boot although several reports state that a quantity of small dead coins were also struck at the San Francisco mint as a trial but then all of these coins were supposedly destroyed at the mint and no small date varieties for the San Francisco mint have ever been discovered in the wild so if you can buy some small miracle find a small date penny in your 1982 Proof Set wow that would be worth quite a bit so including the s-mint mocked proof coin that is a total of eight coins for collectors to search for in order to assemble a complete 1982 Oriol scent collection so I've spoken quite a bit about the 1982 large and small date varieties up until now but I hear some of you asking exactly how do you tell the difference between the two well the simplest way to do it is as the name suggests to look at the date if you take a ruler and draw an imaginary line from the top and bottom of the first one all the way through to the top and bottom of the - of 1982 then a few things become immediately apparent in the small date all of the numbers except for the tale of the nine should be between these two lines but with the large date variety the number eight especially should peak out over the top and under the bottom of this line as well the next and possibly easiest to check by eye is to look at the number two of 1982 pay particular attention to the neck or cross bar I guess you'd call it of the two on the large date variety this coin should practically be a straight line traveling diagonally from the upper curl downwards towards the base by comparison the small date variety has an obvious bend or curve to it the head of the two on the small day type also extends slightly further down compared to the large date coin other details such as this shape and the size of the eight with the small date being more petite in appearance can also be discerned with continued study but these markers I've already mentioned should be more than sufficient to tell the difference between the two varieties so having gotten through all of that which of these coins are worth money and which just aren't well the simplest answer is that most of these coins unfortunately will not be worth a great fortune as they were minted in their millions how as is usually the case there are exceptions which I will now discuss remember how I asked you to keep the Denver Mint in the back of your mind and how the Mint has always maintained that strictly no small date varieties were struck in bronze at that facility well for nearly 35 years that seemed to be exactly the case until 2016 when a solitary example of a 1982 Denver minted small date variety was discovered struck on a bronze planchet by who else but a diligent coin roll hunter the coin was authenticated by NGC as a discovery coin and graded as a u58 Brown that coin was then sold at the 2017 a in a show by Stax powers at their rarities night auction for eighteen thousand eight hundred dollars other than that rare era coin there are also a few very nice varieties to keep an eye out for and since we're already at the Denver Mint let's take a look at the 1982 d large date double die op vez or doubled year coin as the name suggests take a closer look at Lincoln's ear you'll notice that some slight doubling towards the south of the earlobe has taken place on the reverse there should also be a small die chip on the upper part of column number 10 of the memorial building not the most valuable variety but still an interesting case variety specialists should be willing to pay anywhere between 10 and 150 dollars for a coin depending on its grade moving ahead to the more recognizable varieties now lean 1982 double diopters variety is found on the copper planchette large date coins from the Philadelphia Mint remember those are the ones with out a mint mark below the date in this coin look for doubling on the letters of in god we trust' with a slight clockwise rotation in 2012 at PCGS graded ms 63 red coin like this was sold at auction for 198 dollars although for a brown coin of this same grade you should expect about half of that amount then we have a 1982 double die reverse variety which appears on the zinc coins of the small date design these are exceedingly scarce and to date I am only aware of a handful of these coins having been discovered displaying fairly strong spread in virtually all of the letters on the reverse the offset hub doubling on this coin shows up the strongest on the motto and can also be seen on United States of America and one cent as well the coin has yet to make an appearance at a public option but should be worth several thousands of dollars for a nice high grade example with estimates ranging anywhere from $500 to around 3,000 for a single example well that is largely it for the 1982 penny what would you say is the most interesting aspect of this particular coin let me know your thoughts in the comment section below subscribe to wnn and activate notifications with the bell icon if you haven't already never to miss any future videos for the world and numismatic news I am newest Men saying thank you for watching keep collecting and have a great day

Channel: World Numismatic News

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Keywords: coin, coins, numismatic, world numismatic news, coin collecting, 1982 pennies worth money, 1982 transitional pennies, 1982 copper penny, 1982 pennies large and small dates, 1982 pennies differences, 1982 pennies copper and zinc, 1982 pennies weight, 1982 copper penny no mint mark, 1982 copper penny value, 1982 penny small date, 1982 penny large date, 1982 cent error, 1982 cent varieties, 1982 lincoln pennies to look for

Id: QRve5s39lPA

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 24 2018