1993-D Lincoln Memorial Cent Missing Most Of It's Copper Layer

to the Community!

First,

Jarden Zinc (now known as ARTAXN) makes the copper plated zinc planchets for the mint. Their exact plating process is a closely guarded trade secret, but the planchets have double thickness plating on the edge and single plating thickness on the surfaces.

You mentioned that "most" of the plating is missing. Does your coin still have plating on the edge? Or it there also some trace of plating around the inside of the rim or in protected recessed areas on the obverse and reverse?

A couple possibilities come to mind right away. First, there is a fairly common middle school and high school chemistry class experiment where they reverse plate a zinc Lincoln Cent by switching the anode and cathode. Second, the coin's date suggests that it could have been either a "Katrina" or "Harvey" coin, exposed to the toxic soup in the flooding from those hurricanes. Many of those coins were acid washed and returned to circulation. The Katrina or Harvey bronze cents still circulating have a distinct orange tint, but the zinc cents either had the plating stripped or were corroded badly. Many likely were turned into lumps of zinc oxide.

Just some thoughts to ponder.

@Dblessedone777 - - Could you show a picture of the reverse and what is the weight?