When we talk about old coins in #SGS, we are usually most interested in coins with silver. Aside from that, old coins are usually appreciated by history lovers, even if they have no silver in them.

Well, today I thought we'd look at a modern coin that has no silver but can be worth quite a bit: The 1982 US penny. And when I say quite a bit, I mean it! I believe the highest these have gone for is near $20k. For a penny!

So just why are these sought after by collectors? Well, by 1982 the price of copper had been going up so much that it was making pennies cost more than one cent to mint. The US mint decided to switch to copper-plated zinc. This made the new penny weigh slightly less than the old copper one—2.5g vs 3.3g.

I don't know the details of why, but a number of variants of both the new and old penny was minted for 1982. Of these we can split them into two groups, one valuable and one not.

• In the not valuable group is both the old copper penny and the new zinc penny with a large date. The copper versions might go for 20 cents max for high quality coins, but that's about it.
• In the valuable group, we have both old copper pennies and new zinc pennies with a small date. Of these, the copper versions will net you the most money.
  • 1982 small date copper pennies are rare and might go for $2k and up.
  • 1982-D small date copper pennies are the lottery win. These can up at $15k and up. Now as far as I know only one version of this coin has even been found, but... well, do you feel lucky? Check your penny jar!

So two things. How to tell a copper penny from a zinc penny and how to tell a large date from a small date.

Well, you could just weigh them. Like I wrote above, the copper penny is 3.3g and the zinc penny is 2.5. In addition, they make different sounds. Copper has more of a high-pitched ring than zinc when struck. (Neither sounds as nice as silver). Also, copper isn't magnetic while zinc is slightly magnetic.

As for large and small dates, on the large dates the 9 and 8 are taller than the 1 and 2, and that 2 is also very slightly longer than the 1, whereas for the small dates the 1, 8, and 2 are the same height.

When I was a kid, although I am my friends knew about the 1982 copper pennies, the only pennies we ever wanted to find were steel war pennies and Indian head pennies. The former is nearly impossible to find in circulation, but the latter could still sometimes be found when I was a kid. I did eventually get some steel pennies from my grand-folks, but I never did get any Indian head pennies. Anyway, the one we all should have been collecting was the one right under our noses: the 1982 penny. Oh well.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.