Can anyone tell me when the U>S started cladding Penny's

[C.Ddigger]

n/t

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

The modern clad penny, also often called "zinc pennies" due to their predominantly zinc composition, were started in 1982. Prior to that they had a lot more copper in them.

Everybody knows about google but I'm finding a lot of folks who haven't heard of Wikipedia yet...it's at www.wikipedia.org and it's a free online encyclopedia...VERY useful. I typed in "United States penny composition" and this is what I got:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coin/Cent

 

[TONE JUNKY]

n/t

 

[Ralph in Albany NY]

Some of the 82's were copper. there is large date small date, copper and zink. Tone Id detectors will tell you the difference...HH

 

[tomtowns]

n/t

 

[C.Ddigger]

My thing is, I find wheat Penny's that appear as if they have lost A layer. Is that clad or something else. Thanks for the response.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

No, I believe what you are referring to is the usually-green layer of "patina", a crust or shell that wheat pennies build up as the copper begins to age and decay. Sometimes you can see it come off and reveal a more copper-colored surface beneath. A lot depends on the soil where you find it. This happens with Indians and Large Cents as well.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Not really...I've been out hunting here and there but have not found any hot new sites lately. I've dug a few minnieballs, Indians, buttons, and today about a half dozen wheaties but nothing I can get excited enough about to post I guess. I'm having silver withdrawl.

 

[C.Ddigger]

 

[tomtowns]

n/t

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Actually Tom, in the sense that I have always understood it, the term "clad" simply refers to the modern day practice of making coins with little-to-no "precious" metal in them and making them LOOK like "the real thing". The coin is basically cheap metal (zinc) with an external "cladding" of copper, nickel, etc. to make them APPEAR to be copper and silver when in fact they are junk. And like you, I would have tended to consider all BUT the pennies to be "clad". But the fact is that pennies from 82 to present are as much "clad" as all the rest, so I would say that the term fits pennies after all.

 

[tomtowns]

You're a wealth of information Mike...I'm a VW Bug on the information Super-Highway, so I'm one of those who had never used wikipedia before...I was aware of it but had never thought to use it...thanks for wakeing me up...TT