Asterisk Cent?

[Morsecode]

Do you think the 82 will become more or less of an issue in the future, as hoarding/trading/buying/selling eventually goes mainstream?

I mean, I would trust anyone on this forum if they advertised copper 82's, but not so sure about elsewhere. You just know some fools will try ping testing on indoor-outdoor carpeting when this thing goes viral. And you know what they say about a few bad apples...

I've been looking to re-acquire a decent condition Trade dollar, and it seems everyone who's selling one needs to say that theirs is, A: not a fake, and B: never been cleaned, as many of them are one or both. Gets to the point where I can only consider a graded NGC or PCGS piece. I imagine other buyers feel the same way.

Probably not the best example here insofar as the comparison to bulk cents, except to say that Perception plays a big part.

Agree...Disagree?

[PennyBoy]

Do you think the 82 will become more or less of an issue in the future, as hoarding/trading/buying/selling eventually goes mainstream?

I mean, I would trust anyone on this forum if they advertised copper 82's, but not so sure about elsewhere. You just know some fools will try ping testing on indoor-outdoor carpeting when this thing goes viral. And you know what they say about a few bad apples...

I've been looking to re-acquire a decent condition Trade dollar, and it seems everyone who's selling one needs to say that theirs is, A: not a fake, and B: never been cleaned, as many of them are one or both. Gets to the point where I can only consider a graded NGC or PCGS piece. I imagine other buyers feel the same way.

Probably not the best example here insofar as the comparison to bulk cents, except to say that Perception plays a big part.

Agree...Disagree?

I'd love to chime in and give you my answer but you lost me after the first sentence.

[68Camaro]

I think it's not an issue, as they will in the end all be assessed by weight, so easy to sort copper from non-copper.

[Diggin4copper]

I could see someone advertizing a bulk lot of pennies for sale with "NO 1982 CENTS" to assure buyers they were not getting zincs. Or the ad will say that they are mechanicaly separated. I dont think there would be much worry as the price will never get so high that an individual penny will make or break a deal..

[Pennybug]

I've often wondered the same thing. While I tend to agree with Diggin4copper in the fact that if you have a bulk of copper pennies... 82's would only compromise a small portion of them... and within those 82's... only a small portion would be zincs. Statistically then... I don't think it will really make a difference either way.

That said however... as a hand sorter... I keep my 82's out separately. #1 so I can check them 1st and #2 simply because I tend to believe that keeping them out would assure a future buyer that there is NO concern with contamination of zincs in them.

Interesting topic... may warrant a poll being done to see what other real centers are doing.

[highroller4321]

You can't really compare a trade dollar to a 1982 cent. Trade dollars are worth hundreds to thousands and are constantly faked! When buying a trade dollar unless you are an expert I would say it needs to be graded.


At the end result I don't think the 82's really matter. If you go to melt the lot and you have a few 82 zincs in the lot you aren't really going to notice it.

I myself make sure there are zero zincs in my lots, but looking at the big picture it shouldn't matter as long as you limit the 82 zincs.

[tinhorn]

I see your point, and it makes sense to keep the '82s in the stash I keep rather than sell. As 68 wrote, it'll be easy enough to weigh them when the issue becomes important. Or perhaps we should package (roll) and sell those separately. It's easy enough to verify copper percentage by the weight of the roll. In another thread we decided that zinc weighed a maximum of 125 grams, and copper weighed a minimum of 154 grams (plus the weight of the container).

An aligned topic, though, is the issue of cheap sorters. As I've struggled to get ALL the zinc separated from the copper, I've started to wonder how many people run a few boxes through a cheap eBay comparitor, then list the "copper" for sale on the bay. Even with 99% accuracy, that's 25 bad pennies out of the 675 that I keep from an average box. That's about 2 bad pennies per roll. I'm afraid this may become a bigger issue than the '82s.

[68Camaro]

I think most comparitors, once dialed in, either work or don't. Not that there aren't some exceptions out there (semi-defective units? perhaps what you're struggling with). I still have my issue with the anti-fishing feature on the particular model I have that we've separately talked about, but in the last 3-4 boxes, I haven't yet found a zinc in the copper. So I think we're taking more typical rates of 99.9 or 99.99 percent. At those rates no one will complain. At 99.9 there is more variation in the copper alloy itself than you would get from zincs in the copper box.

[pennypicker]

I'm going to take the opposing view and say yes that the '82 will one day be an issue and a "thorn in the side" for transacting. If memory serves me correctly the 1982 has the highest mintage of any 95% copper penny--that there is a problem right off the bat. Also the success rate of '82 cu cents varies regionally. I'm from the Los Angeles area and have hand sorted over 120 $25 string boxes so far and my success rate on '82s is a paltry 40%. I weigh each and every '82 on my jewelry scale after each day of sorting and I'm always consistently around 40%. Point being is I guarantee you ebay currently has sellers who either know about the zinc '82s and throw them all in with the cu's (or) they simply don't know and throw them in likewise.

As the price of copper rises this will only further encourage unscrupulous ebay sellers to purposely throw in all '82s--ebay is and has always been a haven for people on the take. Adding to the problem is that many buyers on ebay no nothing of the '82 issue and believe all '82s are 95% cu. And years down the line if copper reaches serious prices then the '82 issue will only be further exacerbated.

I spent the last two years on the PSA message boards tracking down and exposing vintage sportscard pack counterfeiters and resealers on ebay. And believe if there is anyway for an unethical ebay seller to make a quick buck he will find that way and utilize it!

**Point in hand, just last week I took my aluminum cans to the recycler at my supermarket. He told me that they have been having a problem with people intentionally placing small rocks in many cans before crushing them so they will of course weigh more.

I don't know about the rest of the country but I can guarantee you that here in California the zinc '82s will become an issue if and when the melt ban is lifted and the general public starts selling cu cents.

[Red King]

They can be a problem once they start to add up.

Naturally, a few sellers will cut corners sometimes and count the '82 as a CU, without weighing (...I ALWAYS weight 82's, regardless of appearance...)

In small quantiites, no big deal, since the ZN is almost 70% FV, and in the big picture, it is negligible, at worst.

However, do keep track of which sellers let a few slip...especially repeatedly.

*Also on the subject of weighing, I'm sure most realcenters here know this, but definitely verify your 83's. Even though they are all supposed to be ZN, there was a CU plate that got thrown into the press that year.
1983 CUs do exist, but EXTREMELY rare. One was found years ago and auctioned for over 12K. So far, I have had no such luck

[68Camaro]

I'm going to take the opposing view and say yes that the '82 will one day be an issue and a "thorn in the side" for transacting.

Unless you are hand-sorting, you don't know what dates you have in the pile, just that it satisfies the comparison coin. It's not the date that is really being tested, it is whether it is copper or not, and that can easily be tested as a back-up approach by weighing. I would have no reservations about buying 82s, especially if they were rolled and weighed.

[Pachucko]

Adding to the problem is that many buyers on ebay no nothing of the '82 issue and believe all '82s are 95% cu.

I will second this. I was making quite a few bids on the Bay a couple of weeks ago. I asked every seller who mentioned 82 pennies how they had differentiated between the copper and zinc 82s. Most said they weighed them or had run them through a machine. A couple didn't know there was a difference; one seemed genuinely concerned and pulled his auction, the second one was like 'ok whatever, I'll take out the 82s and put in older ones.' I didn't have a lot of confidence in that happening so I didn't bid.

Also, there is/was at least one seller selling lots of just 82s alongside his lots of pre-82s; he was making no claims as to the copper percentage of the 82s. I thought the bids were a little high on that one.