Where are all the 1982 P cents?

[Guest]

I live in Colorado, so don't see as many P mints as I would hope anyway. I'm trying to complete my 7 types set of the 82's. I'm just wondering if the small date P mints are more scarce than the small date D mints, and if so, how much more scarce?

I thought about posting in the trade section for the last one I need, but thought I should know the answer to the above question first.

[coppercoins]

Of the seven varieties of 1982 cents, the small date Philly minted cents are the most scarce. Of those two, the zinc is the toughest to find, thus a BU value of over $2 per coin.

Here in Southern Missouri we get more D mint coins than P mint coins, but there's a scattering of about 20% P mint. In last year's count, I sorted and counted out 15,000 cents from here and Kansas City, about 190 miles to the North. My 1982 count was:

1982P LDC - 34
1982P LDZ - 41
1982P SDC - 8
1982P SDZ - 2
1982D LDC - 231
1982D LDZ - 87
1982D SDZ - 94

Even to take the above numbers and multiply the P mint coins by 5 to get the same proportion between mints, you still only end up with 10 P mint SD zinc cents. These things are truly scarce, and it's about time people start to realize that en-masse.

Already when a person can manage to find BU rolls of the P mint SD zinc cents they run over $30 a roll.

[D.J.]

Wow. That's worse than I ever would have guessed.

Great information, thanks man. Well, I'm off to some coin shops to see if I get lucky enough to "pick" one that way.

[jgmick]

agree on the low pop of 82s

Agreed, I go through about 10-20 brinks boxes a year.....In the past 3 years, I have only found
(19) 1982 Red or AU grade SM DT Zincs
(44) 1982 Red or AU grade LG DT Zincs

[Jonathan]

Isn't the copper P small date the rarest? That's what my friend said and he said also that in his entire time collecting he hasn't got a roll yet.

[coppercoins]

Jonathan - It 'could' be the scarcest by mintage, no official figures leaves us all guessing at that - but it's definitely not the scarcest by survivability. because of the immense plating problems with the first few years of zinc cents, the small date zinc is by far the hardest to find now.

I figure well over half of the small date zinc cents minted are now gone. It's likely that a full 80% of the brass 1982 small date cents minted are still out there because they are made of a much more inert metal.

[legend]

1982 Sets of pennies.

If you see sets of 1982 cents-all seven of them- on EBAY for less than $7.00,
you should buy five sets. If you can, buy roll sets of 1982, so YOU can assemble the best set for yourself. When I was assembling a roll set of 1959-2007, the 1982 were hard to find. That was four years ago. As I search through bag after bag, I see VERY FEW 1982 small date. VERY FEW 1982 small date.
very few

[Jonathan]

Actually i've seen quite a few. Maybe they're more common up here.

[Jonathan]

They are rare though. My friend has been doing it for 25 years, but you must not include the 80's years because he only started collecting the 80's in the late 90's, and he still hasn't gotten One roll of 1982 copper small dates. How much do you think a 1982 copper small date roll would go for? $100 maybe?

[legend]

Not so many of alot.

You are so right! I have seen very few of the so many hard to find but quickly locatable fifty dollar rolls of a scant few many 1982 lincolns, Johathan.
I will keep my eye out in daily pocket change for the little amounts here, too.
In 25 more years, I may or may not be lucky to get all or nearly some of a roll. Or not.

[coppercoins]

The copper small dates go for around $15-$20 per roll. The zinc small dates go for closer to $40 per roll.

[D.J.]

1982-S Large Date Copper Proof, cool.

Well thanks for all the replies everyone.

I said earlier in the post I was going to try a couple coin shops around and see if I could find any of these 82-P small dates. Well I only had time to try one shop, no 82-P's, but I was surprised to find this.

1982-S Large Date Copper Proof.
Obverse has some kind of stains unfortunately, I don't think that is the toning. Still for $2.00 a no brainer for me, even if the value was currently one cent it will fit nicely with the others in the type set, which will be complete soon thanks to a friendly guy who saw my post and was willing to work something out. Just gotta wait out the mail a couple days now.

To make things even better, I scored a couple 1955 in great condition, will post pics soon to hopefully get some feedback. (I am currently shooting through a loop, is sooo hard) One I don't think is a variety, still need to look closer though.

The other is listed in "Coppercoins" as 1955-1DO3. Looks to be the most common of the DDO's. The die crack on "Cent" was a quick and dead give away, and after seeing separation in "WE TRUST" I decided it was worth the $1.00 and took the other for the same price.

[coppercoins]

Umm....ALL 1982 proof cents are large date copper...just in case you thought there were different ones.

[SPQR]

It probably doesn't help that many of the early 80's Zincolns are quite literally disintegrating from the inside out. Of the early 80's cents I pull, probably 2/3 have deformations from the zinc bubbling under the plating.
Some are to the point where they will no longer stack correctly. Nothing like a nice corrosion bloom!

[snowman]

here is my totals for 82s since i started to keep track of them a couple years

i live here in New York State so naturally i see less D's over here. this information is kept on a excel spreedsheet so i copied a small part of it

Total 82D's 282 LD-CU 80.85% LD-ZN 3.19% SM-ZN 15.96%


Total 82P's 3037 LD-CU 48.47% LD-ZN 34.51% SM-CU 4.41% SM-ZN 12.61%



Snowman