1982 D Lincoln Penny uncertified and circulated small date

If you hang around numismatists, you’ll likely hear discussion about the 1982 penny. The admiration and reverence that you’ll hear might be surprising. After all, the penny is the most maligned coin of the American currency system. There have been many prominent calls to remove the 1-cent piece from circulation over the years. So, it doesn’t make immediate sense that a penny would catch the eye of coin collectors and precious metals investors. Pennies minted with the new dies were quickly nicknamed “small date” pennies because their date marks appeared significantly smaller than pennies minted with the original design dies. Thus, 1982 pennies are subdivided into Large Date and Small Date varieties by collectors. As a general rule, 1982 Large Date pennies are made of copper and do command a dollar or two from collectors, as they are some of the “old-style” pennies. The new pennies are therefore Small Date pennies and are likely worth little more than their face value. However, Mint employees at both Philadelphia and Denver made an impactful error as they were pressing the new pennies with the new style dies. A very few of the old copper planchets made it into the production line and out into the public, thus creating the Small Date copper penny. Certain versions of the 1982 penny are quite valuable due to their rarity and history. The most expensive of the group are the 1982-D small date copper pennies.