1982 LMC Question. What's The Difference?

Unfortunately, you need to weigh them. Coppers weigh 3.11 grams and zincs are 2.5 g. There's a balance method where you can take a known copper from, say, '79 and use a popsicle stick to compare relative weights across a fulcrum but I've never been able to make that work.

I made myself a scale just for 1982's . all you need is a wooden tongue depressor from a doctor or ? ,a drop of glue, and a round tooth pick .
I think you might find instructions on : [urlhttp://lincolncentresource.com/][/url]

I agree, weighing the coins are the best way of telling.
Once you look at a lot of coins, many times you can tell
the copper from the zinc by just looking at them.

For this hobby getting a scale to weigh your coins will
become important, once your collection starts to get larger.

Scales that are good for this purpose can be purchased for
less than $15.

MontCollector, from other post I think you are not near a
a coin shop, but many of the shops I have been to, will have
1982 Lincoln sets on labeled cards for a small amount. There
may be similar sets online. Maybe there are some CCF members
that might have some extras.

Upwards of 90% of 1982s are bronze rather than zinc.

I typically give the coin a "heads or tails" flip. Zinc coins will make a soft "thunk" while bronze coins will ring until they land back in your hand. Your fingernail is not hard enough to scratch the coin in any way noticeable to the naked eye. (E: I should mention that this is the best/fastest/cheapest method for coins in AU or lower. If you are *buying* the coins, they should already be attributed as zinc or bronze. You can get a set of all seven varieties in BU for less than $5 on ebay.)

Also a little background on the varieties since real info seems to be hard to come by:

Large date dies were designed to strike solid bronze cents. They comprise the majority of all 1982 cents. The small date die was designed to strike zinc cents. Philadelphia tested the small date dies on bronze planchets, but Denver did not have small date dies until the composition switched.

The legislature passed late in the year and production of zinc cents only started in late October or early November of 1982. Both mints had some extra large date dies on hand, and used those up in addition to the new small date dies. Denver was meticulous in clearing out ALL bronze planchets from the hopper prior to beginning zinc coin production. As such, there are no known 1982-D small date in bronze, but there is curiously 1 (or maybe 2?) 1983-D in bronze. A bronze 1982-D small date is pretty much the holy grail of modern cent varieties.