Lincoln Zinc Pennies

What do you mean when you say corrosion?

Oxidation on surfaces is normal if you leave a coin exposed to open air conditions for any real period of time. Corrosion is a different animal, if you are having issues with corrosion on coins that are only a year or two old, then it only stands to reason that there is a serious issue with the place of storage, or method.

Please explain in more detail on exactly what you mean by corrosion.

once a coin gets to that point, I don't think there's anything you can do about the corrosion.

Agreed, there's enough nice examples out there that it's not worth messing with the poor examples.

The 1989-D's are one of the worst made Zincolns. Not only for the plating cut, but for horrible spotting and poor corrosion resistance. 99.9% of the 89-D's I find are absolute garbage....as are most of the Denver cent issues. There's a reason the 1986-D rolls go for $30+ each, most of them are garbage. I'd be VERY hesitant to ever purchase an unopened OBW roll of these. I would much prefer a roll that was put together by an astute collector.

Don't waste your time or money or supplies on zinc pennies. It is true they do not survive well but you can find all dates in bu condition (yes even the early to mid 80's) if you search enough coins. If you need a specific date and don't want to do the work to find them in bank boxes just buy it from your local dealer as they are still cheap enough.

Zinc pennies DO NOT hold up with wear and the 2009 presidential series is obviously one of them. I am finding a lot of them that are looking very rough and they have only been in circulation for less than a year. Sincerely, John Leckrone

Since the big killers of the Zincolns are air and moisture, I've often wondered if pristine pieces could be preserved by sealing them in a jar of mineral oil. The oil would not react with either the zinc or the copper, and it would seal them away from water or air.

None of the memorial cents is scarce or rare in gem. All of these cents have been set aside in the millions simply because they have so little value that a few dollars can set aside large numbers and many have set aside a few dollars worth or more. Some dates are much more difficult like the '71 but the demand is still significantly lower than the supply so it's not apparent they are tough. Some dates like the '84-D were saved in smaller numbers and are usually bad so they do have premiums.

But when you see a "valuable" zincoln that wholesales for "only" $.30 you should remember two things. First is that the demand for moderns is still very weak. But more importantly is that this demand is often not extremely sophisticated. Collectors purchase sets and see spotting or unattractive surfaces on some of the coins but the set still looks nice so their demand has been satisfied. They are no longer putting demand on that 30c coin. But in the longer term they are going to become more sophisticated and many will want all the coins in their set to look nice. Also by that time the demand might have grown to as great as the demand for the older Lincolns. Histrorically people actually collected the more recent dates in preferentially to the older ones because they are cheaper and more available. It's only been in the last couple generations that this has been stood on its head.

As the demand continues to increase year after year many of these coins are going to be seen to be very difficult to acquire. No, I'm still not sayiong they're scarcve merely that many are every bitt as tough and even tougher than most of the older cents in nice condition. A few more years of neglect for the zincolns will not help. These coins needed loving care from the first day and instead they're mostly corroding away in change jars.

Try finding a gem '84-D with nice surfaces. This isn't really all that tough aa date but even the slabbed gems don't often have nice surfaces. The '68 was probably the most common Memorial cent at one time in gem but now because of corrosion it's one of the toughest.

So you're right that these coins will become corroded in the longer term but this is a self fullfilling prophesy. By the same token the belief that they will become valuable for the same reasons is also a self fullfilling prophesy.

The simple fact is that these coins are fun to assemble into a gem set because they are already a challenge. As time goes on more people will discover this challenge and this will cause even more stress on supplies than corrosion.