Memorial cent with grey rim

[Mosley]

I found this 1992 memorial cent. It has a dark grey rim all around the coin. Sorry the pictures are no better, for some reason this was hard to photograph.

 

[LabradorBob]

Oh No,It's the grim lincoln.
put it back! LOL
Just kidding,thanks for sharing.
LabradorBob

 

[Agseeker]

All of the zinc pennies I've found that have been in the ground awhile are always heavily corroded around the edges, sometimes with big chunks missing. My guess is that the copper cladding is thinnest on the edges and gets eaten through first.

 

[joedirt]

In 1982 they started making the pennies out of zinc with a thin copper coating. Some of the 82 pennies are still copper, some zinc. You can tell the difference by bouncing it of a flat hard surface. The copper pennies will "ring" and the zinc pennies with "thud". Everything from 83 through today are zinc. I've found some less than 10 years old that you can look through because of the corrosion holes.

Some zincolns are valuable due to certain irregularities noted in the coin books. I personally don't like the zinc pennies as they are a tragic testimony as to how much our money has been devalued.

 

[Agseeker]

I read somewhere on-line that is is illegal to sell copper coins and nickels as scrap metal so before you take all your 1959-1982 copper memorial cents (I'm keeping all my wheaties) to the scrap dealer you may want to check it out first.

 

[Mosley]

The grey ring around the penny is not corrosion. It looks like it was made that way. The grey ring is uniform and rounded all around both edges. I tried to take more pictures, but the camera didn't want to focus.