Numismatic News reader Howard Sawicki has reported finding a 1983 cent that weighs 3.0 grams.

The presumption in a case like this is that it must be copper, something it shouldn't be because all cents were supposed to have been made of copper-coated zinc in that year.

The weight of 3.0 grams is shy of the 3.1 grams that a genuine 95-percent copper cent should weigh, but much more than the 2.5 grams a genuine copper-plated zinc cent should weigh.

However, the weight is too light. There the mystery deepens.

In the last few weeks I've shown the first known 1982-D Small Date cent struck on a Pre-82 US cent planchet that weighs the correct 3.1 grams and I've shown a 1983-D cent that weighs a light 3.0 grams. Both were authenticated by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation as struck on solid copper alloy planchets. However the 1983-D weighed 3.0 grams and was identified as being of a 92 percent copper alloy rather than the 95 percent copper 5 percent zinc alloy - out of specifications on both counts for a pre-1982 planchet.

The latest cent dated 1983 is as mysterious as the 1983-D of which nobody knows exactly what it represents. However, in this case there does appear to be planchet blisters, which are diagnostic of a copper-plated zinc cent, but I have no explanation for the weight being so much over the normal 2.5 grams.

It could be struck on an unidentified foreign planchet or it could it be a wayward pre-1982 planchet that was inadvertently plated if such a thing exists. Of course it could simply be struck on a thick planchet - I just don't know at this point, but I can say I've never seen a copper-plated zinc planchet weighing this far out of specifications.

To read the complete article, see:
Search goes on for errors in copper(www.numismaticnews.net/article/search-goes-errors-copper)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
BRONZE 1982-D SMALL DATE CENT ERROR DISCOVERED(www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n08a18.html)