A Penny’s Worth of Fun.

I surely will be labeled a geek when I tell you what I did last night. It surprised even me, Mr. TV reporter. Mr. Too Busy to Stop and Smell the Roses. But last night, for a full hour, there were no thoughts about work or the pressures of raising a family. It was just me, my wife and a magnifying glass.

And a big ol’ jar full of pennies.

Putting pennies into one of those specially-made penny albums was actually my wife’s idea. She’s the coin-lover of the family, and has been ever since her father, who’s now deceased, left behind several rolls of Lincoln Wheat Cents. My wife still keeps them in a drawer. It was her idea to buy a penny album. She was busy filling it last night when I joined in.

My first observation was that pennies, a common coin with the least value, see the most amount of “travel,” making it difficult to find one that isn’t soiled, scratched or tarnished beyond recognition. We were being choosy. Only the best and brightest for our penny album! Yet some 1990s pennies looked older and more worn than some of the best 1960s pennies. Are we allowed to clean them, or is that considered cheating? Neither of us knew, so we opted to leave them in their natural condition.

Next, we discovered that people in their forties have a difficult time seeing the letter “D” below the year. A “D” indicates the coin was minted in Denver, Colorado, and most pennies, except for those made from 1965 to 1967 have a “D” version. Older people need a magnifying glass to see it, and my wife and I could only scrounge up one.

Still, we managed to fill quite a few empty slots in that one hour. The newer pennies were the easiest. Pennies from the ’60s and ’70s pennies were slow-going, understandably. To my delight, my wife produced a beautiful 1962 penny from my birth year. It’s odd holding a penny in your hand that’s been on this earth for as long as you have.

The only stress of the night had to do with pennies from the year 1982. There are seven –I repeat– seven pennies from that year, and telling them apart takes more skill (and better vision) than either of us had. The 1982 series breaks down like this:

• 1982  Cop. Lg. Dt.
• 1982  Cop. Sm. Dt.
• 1982  Zn. Lg. Dt.
• 1982  Zn. Sm. Dt.

Cop. stands for copper. Zn. stands for zinc. Lg. Dt. means “large date.” Sm. Dt. indicates “small date.” Throw in three more pennies marked “D,” and you have yourself a penny-identification nightmare. Even if you can differentiate between the size in dates, telling copper from zinc ain’t easy, my brother!

Here’s a “how to” guide I found on a coin collectors forum:

“The which are zinc and which are copper can be trickier to identify. The poor man`s method I usually employ is the drop test. The coppers will have a kind of ring sound when dropped, but the zincs do not ring at all. But if your ears arent that good to tell and you can weigh the coins, the coppers will be atleast in the 3 gram range while the zincs are lighter at about the 2.5 grams weight.”

Yeah right.

The important thing is, we had a great time sitting at our table looking at pennies, of all things. And if you’re chuckling over the mental image of this, notice how you thought of nothing else but pennies while reading this post. Hey, I’ll bet you’re even reaching into your pocket, hoping to locate a penny with a “D” beneath the date.

Do you see one?

A penny for your thoughts.

(Fun and games: Which one of these images of a penny is correct?)

A quick note about the author:  Tim Waller has lived in Greenville, South Carolina since 1994. He and his family love the Upstate area. This is a blog about their life.

Tags: coin collecting, coins, pennies, penny, u.s. mint