1983 Brass Plated Cent- Weights How Many Grams?

Hi, To explain a little bit for those who may not know.

Once the change was made to the composition of cents in 1982 to a copper plated zinc, the standard weight should be 2.50 gms.

Earlier cents should weigh 3.11 gms.

The plating on the post change composition cents is supposed to be pure copper, not brass.

Occasionally though, some zinc planchets accidentally get retained in the plating tanks when the planchets are plated. As the zinc dissolves, it contaminates the pure copper. Copper plus zinc yields Brass.

Brass plated cents are yellowish and back in the 1982 , 1983 era would sometimes look greenish in color.

All that being said, I am not sure if the coin is copper plated or is mistakenly being called brass plated. It could very well be brass plated and the color would help in that determination.

A copper plating vs. a brass plating would not have a substantial difference in weight.

The 2.67 gms. vs. the normal 2.50 gms. could simply be the result of the zinc planchet, prior to being plated , being rolled a hair too thick. The nice strike and the strong high rims is also an indication that the planchet was a minor amount thicker.

Thanks,
Bill

Your not going to find a error coin is not easily with all the roll searcher's. If your going to find a cent error it going to be a a BU roll today.

Might be better to just watch for obvious stuff - obvious double struck coins, off-centers that are obvious, brockages (which are obvious), and the well-known more obvious doubled dies and repunched mintmarks.

I believe part of the problem is that you are pulling anything that looks a slight bit odd with magnification, and you're studying the coins too closely, which slows you down and has you missing some of the better stuff because of the lack of volume in your searches.

If you go through 20,000 coins in a month looking for the fast and easy stuff you might pull one or two coins worth $20-$50 each...but if you're searching very closely for anything that looks imperfect thinking all of them are errors or varieties, you end up finding nothing in a couple thousand coins, and you miss the other 18,000.

It takes time to learn how to search for the good stuff and skip over all the minor anomalies...but I can tell you that learning to skip the die cracks, misaligned dies, planchet bubbles, brassy colored coins, and especially Machine Doubling will help you immensely in the long run to build a collection that actually has some value to someone else when you're ready to liquidate.

My speed: obverse and reverse, I can go through a 50 coin roll under a microscope in less than three minutes (unless I find something). I can go through a $50 bag in a week...and I don't miss much of anything.

My average finds:

Major errors: 1 per six months. (1 in 120,000 coins)
Minor errors worth keeping: 1 per month (1 in 20,000 coins)
Major doubled dies: 1 per three months (1 in 60,000 coins)
Minor doubled dies: 1 per week (1 in 5,000 coins)
RPMs (getting harder to find considering last were in 1989): 3 per week (1 in 1,700 coins)
Key date coins (1960SD, 1970S SD): 1 per year (1 in 250,000 coins)

This is just in Memorials...in the wheats (mixed, unsearched):

Major errors: 1 per two years. (1 in 500,000 coins)
Minor errors worth keeping: 1 per month (1 in 20,000 coins)
Major doubled dies: 1 per week (1 in 1,700 coins)
Minor doubled dies: 10-20 per week (1 in 150 coins)
RPMs: 10-20 per week (1 in 150 coins)
Key date coins (1909S, VDB, 1922 no D, 1931S, 1914D, teens S mint): 1 per 5 years - to never (1 in 1,250,000 coins)

So...people expecting to find an error or variety in every piggy bank worth of coins are sadly mistaken and are expecting WAY too much.

And, by the way, finding doubled dies and repunched mintmarks is far more common in mixed circulated material than in BU rolls...it's just that when you hit them in BU rolls they are in better shape and you usually get a few of the same die, whereas in circulation the opposite is true.

If an error is a major error, you don't need a 'list' - they are coin to coin, obvious to the naked eye, and vary by date or type.

Ahh...okay, then. You're not looking for errors. You're looking for die varieties. Calling them correct thing keeps it clearer. Doubled dies, repunched mintmarks, over mintmarks, repunched dates - those are all die varieties, not errors.

For errors there would be no such thing as a list of dates that have them...any error is possible on any year of coin - one of the many things that make errors and die varieties different.

Since I cannot find the topic I wrote that discusses the difference between errors and varieties and die varieties, I will create a page on it and publish it on my website some time this weekend, then I will link you to it. Nothing against you or anyone else here, but it's an in-depth subject and I get tired of constantly retyping it. Makes sense to create something permanent. I'll let you know when I get it done.

Suffice to say, if you consider the following you will be 99% correct most of the time:

Die varieties are: doubled dies, repunched mintmarks, over mintmarks, repunched dates, over dates.

Varieties are: changes in the design on a coin that are usually minor, on-purpose, but not intended for people to notice...mintmark style changes, date size changes, etc.

Errors are: pretty much anything I didn't state above that is a mistake made by the mint.

You can bank on that short description most of the time...but there is detail in the explanation that will help further that requires more thought and more time. I'll get to it this week, if possible.

Got it!

I was thinking along the lines of the 1983 Reverse Cud I had found as being an error.

Thanks Chuck and biochemist6 for the clarification.