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As a newbie hand sorter I have now accumulated over 800 1982 pennies and I will be receiving a Triton T2 300 digital scale from ebay any day now so I can determine which of the 800 are copper or zinc. I wanted to ask experienced weighers of '82's if there is a "gray" area in which I will have to make a guess as to whether a particular coin is copper or zinc. In other words will all zincs weigh in at 2.5 grams or less or will some zincs weigh it at 2.6, 2.7 or even 2.8? Similarly will some coppers, with average wear, weigh less than 3.1 such as 2.9, 2.8 or 2.7?

My concern is that some coppers might weigh in low near 2.8 grams and similarly some zincs might come in heavy near the 2.8 mark and cause a "gray" area requiring me to make a guess. Just trying to anticipate any problems as I don't want to unknowingly throw in any zinc '82's into my copper pile. Any advice from experienced '82 weighers is greatly appreciated, Don.

I've never has a zinc weight more than 2.6 unless it was heavily caked in gunk, or a copper weight less than 2.99 unless it was really worn down. You shouldn't have to worry about any gray area when it comes to weighing, but if a coin did read out between 2.6 and 2.9, you can just look at the coin and see if its really worn (copper), or heavily caked in sludge (zinc) and go from there.

Same here...I wouldn't worry about it. I've only done around 50 lbs worth of sorting, but I always wind up with a decent 82 stash that I have to weigh with my pocket-sized scale as well. The coppers are almost never lower than 3.0g and the zincs are almost never more than 2.6g. You should be fine.

Hopefully, your scale will also come with a counterweight (ie 100g block) to reset the scale as necessary; this would provide even more accurate readings. Make sure you put your scale on a flat, firm surface (ie table, ground etc).

I have never weighed a 1982 cent.

Take a known zinc (1983 or later) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a thud, then take a known copper (1981 or earlier) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a light ringing tone to the sound of it hitting the table. Then take all your 1982s and do this and you will easily separate them. Never fails.

If do the drop test as you sort them you wont have 800 to do all at once.

I agree, I own a few accurate scales but have never used one to weigh a cent. Once you drop test a few and get the hang of it the sound difference is astonishing.

HPMBTT wrote: The coppers are almost never lower than 3.0g and the zincs are almost never more than 2.6g. You should be fine.

Same for me, I've never had a issue distinguishing between the 2.

Get a popsicle stick, glue a zinc on one end. Find the balance point where a copper will lift the zinc. Cut a section of a pencil or some other round stick. Use it as a fulcrum. Now you have a teter toter with a zinc on one end. A copper will lift the zinc another zinc will not. 100-percent accurate.

Thogey wrote:Get a popsicle stick, glue a zinc on one end. Find the balance point where a copper will lift the zinc. Cut a section of a pencil or some other round stick. Use it as a fulcrum. Now you have a teter toter with a zinc on one end. A copper will lift the zinc another zinc will not. 100-percent accurate.

you stole my answer i have a digital scale but prefer the popsicle stick scale its fast set pennie on up/down trow it in correct pile

CardsNCoins wrote:I have never weighed a 1982 cent.

Take a known zinc (1983 or later) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a thud, then take a known copper (1981 or earlier) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a light ringing tone to the sound of it hitting the table. Then take all your 1982s and do this and you will easily separate them. Never fails.

If do the drop test as you sort them you wont have 800 to do all at once.

I agree and have sorted my 82s by sound for MANY Years now. Its extremely easy and accuracy is 100%.
800 could be sorted easily within 20-30 minutes on the right surface.

Best way is to try a couple different tables/desks/surfaces you have available until you find one that you like the best by doing the drop test that CardsNCoins mentions above. You only really need to drop them a couple inches at most from the surface to get a really nice ring from the coppers & the zincs will thud. Some surfaces will not work well at all, others work so well that there is ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM getting 100% accuracy doing the sort. Honest, this is the best and easiest way for handsorters to separate the 82's once you find a pretty good surface to drop them on.

Wow!, you guys are unbelievable. I want to thank you for the great information and ingenious ideas to make the process much easier than I anticipated. Initially I was so concerned about these '82's being a headache that I simply threw all '82's into the zinc pile. I did this with the first four $25 boxes I sorted but I was throwing so many into the zinc pile I decided on the 5th $25 box to go ahead and start saving the '82's. Again I sincerely thank everyone who has chimed in thus far. I was previously a member of the PSA baseball card message boards for eight years and like those boards these boards are proving to be a most valuable tool.

pennypicker wrote:.........I was previously a member of the PSA baseball card message boards for eight years.........

PM sent regarding the PSA message boards.

I've never had a problem with a grey area in weighing '82's, they have all been within a tenth of a gram. For the few that are gunked-up I will just take an old jack knife blade and gouge into the cent. If the color is grey in the gouge, then it's a zinc cent. A copper cent will have the same copper color deep into the gouged out area.

Just flick the '82 cents up in the air with your thumb. Coppers make a ringing sound zincs do not. Do that while you sort and they won't pile up on you.

When I first started weighing the 82's, I did them one at a time. Slowly my brain noticed the high percentages of copper 82's versus the zinc 82's. So I started weighing 2 at a time...simple math. Later I moved to three at a time, then 4, and now 5. I would say for the year, my copper 82's were about 90% compared to 10% for the zincers. Now, recently that has changed. I'm seeing more and more zinc 82's. Anyway, I'm still on my first battery on my scale. It takes all of 5-6 minutes to do a stash of 82's from 2 boxes. The only copper 82's that weighed less than 3.0 grams were highly worn down. And I've never had a zinc one weigh more than 2.5 grams. And, the scale comes in handy when weighing silver and gold jewelry!

I use a scale to sort all of my cents. The eyes just can't take looking at every date.
After looking at a couple hundred thousand cents you can visually tell the difference between the zinc and coppers an amazingly high percentage of the time. Given that as I open a roll I pull out the copper looking coins and put them in a stack. I'll stack up the zincs in stacks of ten. I put them on the scale 10 at a time. If the zincs don't come out to 25.0 g i know one of them is copper. If the copper doesn't come out to 31.0 g (it usually come out a little under because of wear & tear) I know one of them is zinc. It's a very efficient process and has cut my sorting time by about a third. Of course if you are into errors or counterstrikes this is not the way to go. I do look at the back of all coppers before I store them to pull out the wheats.

My daughter is 6, and she can tell the difference by bouncing them off a table.

Popsicle stick is cheap and accurate. Digital scales can be bought off ebay for around $ 10

Here is what i use. Piece of shim stock with an old chrome socket glued to it. the penny on the right is copper and the weight. the penny on the left is being weighed. it is zinc. just place it any where beyond the line and if it falls its copper and if it stayes up its zinc. a little trial and error for the socet placement for proper balance but it works GREAT.

Thanks silverguy23 and everyone else with their great advice. I really appreciate silverguy23 for taking the time to give a picture of his weighing device. The socket is a great idea for a fulcrum and so is the shim. Pretty crafty on your part

bounce them on the table! Copper cents ring and zincs do not..

When I weigh them on a scale I go really fast and keep anything over 3gm. and pass anything under 3gm. its not worth the time splitting hairs, and I also discard anything excessively corroded or gunked up.
Hand sorting takes me a lot of time so I don't spend much of it on 82's

Bob.

Time seems to be an issue here. Well, after you weigh enough 82's with your scale...you can fly through them with simple math. This past week I sorted 4 boxes. I did 2 one day and 2 the next. Each sort ended up with roughly 150 82's. It took all of 5 minutes to do 150. I have a high percentage area so I weigh 5-6 at a time. And, when I find a batch that has higher zinc percentage...I weigh 2 or 3 at a time. My $20 scale has paid for itself just in time saved! It has also helped in the jewelry hunting at garage sales!

they will always be within a tenth of 2.5 or 3.1 ..... also you will find that most 82s are copper

My digital scale has paid for itself on other coin purchases, so it's a handy tool to have beyond the 82's.

I still verify in batches of 5 pennies to make sure that they are all copper before I roll them up. If 5 of them don't weigh at least 15.3 g, a zinc penny may have snuck in there.

Belt and suspenders...

Mooski wrote:My digital scale has paid for itself on other coin purchases, so it's a handy tool to have beyond the 82's.

I still verify in batches of 5 pennies to make sure that they are all copper before I roll them up. If 5 of them don't weigh at least 15.3 g, a zinc penny may have snuck in there.

Belt and suspenders...

Mooski interesting technique. It gets me thinking about the process when searching fro copper and thinking you can eye all the coins . I'm wondering how many copper I thrown in with the zincs due to color etc. All copper finds I search the dates. Does everyone search all dates of coins they are throwing in zinc pile or searching by color?

I look at all the dates....but then again I am small time.