1982-D Lincoln Cent. Small Date--Struck on a Bronze Planchet--AU-58 BN (NGC).3.08 grams. This is a highly significant coin that will appeal to advanced Lincoln cent collectors and Mint error enthusiasts alike. It dates to 1982, an important transitional year in the modern Lincoln cent series. Sometime around the middle of that year the Mint stopped using bronze planchets in cent production due to rising costs. As a cost-saving expedient, copper-plated zinc planchets were adopted as a substitute, and they remain in use today. The new planchets proved more difficult to strike than their bronze predecessors, however. Whereas planchets composed solely or predominantly of copper could be struck hard and fast to maximize the number of coins produced in any given time period, copper-plated zinc planchets required a slower rate of striking to adequately fill the dies and bring up full detail on each piece. The slower striking rate resulted in an unacceptable reduction in output, and to overcome this problem the Mint was forced to modify the Lincoln cent design. The alterations were minor and consisted of making the digits and letters in the date, LIBERTY, and the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on the obverse smaller and more delicate. This resulted in smaller recessed areas of the die to fill during striking, allowing the Mint to return to a faster press speed.The modified design that the Mint prepared for use with the new copper-plated zinc planchets has become known in numismatic circles as the Small Date variety. This is technically a misnomer since, as related above, the letters in the word LIBERTY and the motto IN GOD WE TRUST were also modified. The easiest way to identify the Small Date variety, nonetheless, is by looking at the digits in the date. On the Small Date variety, the digit 2 in the date is much farther from the rim than it is on the Large Date variety.The combination of changed planchets and modified design yielded seven different varieties of circulation strike Lincoln cent for 1982:1 - 1982 bronze, Large Date2 - 1982 bronze, Small Date3 - 1982-D bronze, Large Date4 - 1982 copper-plated zinc, Large Date5 - 1982 copper-plated zinc, Small Date6 - 1982-D copper-plated zinc, Large Date7 - 1982-D copper-plated zinc, Small DateThe reader may notice that, whereas the Philadelphia Mint used both the outgoing Large Date and the incoming Small Date varieties to strike bronze cents, the Denver Mint employed only the Large Date logotype with this planchet stock. This was the intention, as confirmed by the Denver Mint. Even so, many numismatists suspected that the eighth variety of this date -- 1982-D bronze, Small Date -- actually did exist and was awaiting discovery. That discovery came on November 23, 2016, in Minnesota.In 2011, Paul Malone, the discoverer and consignor of this coin, decided that copper had become valuable enough that bronze Lincoln cents were "not good enough to keep, but too good to spend." Accordingly, he began buying 5,000-coin bags of cents from local banks and saving the bronze examples that he found therein. In his own words:<em>"In the beginning I kept none of the 1982 [cents] since I had no way to separate zinc from copper. Then I remembered seeing a balance scale offered long ago by The Penny Merchant, Virg Marshall III. It was a simple see-saw, but I wasnt sure how it worked. I bought some craft sticks and round toothpicks at the Dollar Store and proceeded to make my own. The trick is in the placement of the fulcrum, which is nothing but a pyramid of toothpicks, so a copper cent will tip the scale but a zinc one wont. It worked great. It was fast and accurate. I began weighing every 1982 I found."</em>Using this simple scale, and armed with the knowledge that bronze cents of 1982 are heavier than their copper-plated zinc counterparts (3.11 vs. 2.5 grams), our consignor discovered this 1982-D Small Date cent struck on a bronze planchet on the afternoon of November 23. He had only recently returned to searching for bronze cents after taking a break, the decision to do so brought about by a snowstorm that left him with nothing else to do that day. This discovery coin was in the last handful of cents from the bag he was searching.On a recommendation from <em>Numismatic News</em> Editor Dave Harper, our consignor contacted Ken Potter, who upon personal examination authenticated the coin as a genuine 1982-D Small Date cent struck on a bronze planchet. Potter announced the discovery to the numismatic community in an article posted to the Internet on December 23, 2016, and which later appeared as a front page story in the January 3, 2017 edition of <em>Numismatic News</em>. Dave Harper was kind enough to allow Ken Potter to reprint a condensed version of this article in the January-February 2017 edition of CONECAs <em>ErrorScope</em>. Certification by NGC followed on February 10, the service designating this piece as the "Discovery Coin" for a 1982-D Small Date cent struck on a bronze planchet. This designation was assured after rumors that PCGS had previously certified a bronze 1982-D Small Date cent in AU-55 proved to be false. As of this writing, this is the only known example of this variety.With the Denver Mint claiming that they did not use the Small Date logotype to strike bronze cents in 1982, this piece was obviously made in error when a leftover bronze planchet found its way into a press being used to strike the new copper-plated zinc Small Date cents. In the 35 years that have elapsed since 1982, it is amazing that no other examples of this variety have surfaced. Obviously an important find for the Mint error enthusiast, advanced Lincoln cent collectors seeking an example of each of the planchet and date logotype varieties of 1982-dated cents will also require this coin in order for their sets to be complete. We certainly anticipate keen interest in this coin from several segments of the collecting community.This lot includes a copy of the pamphlet <em>The Discovery of the 1982-D Small Date Copper Cent</em> written by our consignor which details his discovery of this coin. <em>The pamphlet is available to the winning bidder upon request to Stacks Bowers Galleries after the close of the auction</em>.
