Lincoln Memorial Cents 1959-2008

Lincoln's portrait had been on the cent for fifty years when the Treasury changed the other side. The White House announced the new reverse in December 1958, and the coins went out on Lincoln's 150th birthday, February 12, 1959. Frank Gasparro won an internal Mint contest with his view of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Victor David Brenner's 1909 portrait stayed on the obverse. The design it replaced, and the cent's earlier history, are covered on the Lincoln Wheat cent page.

The first change came almost at once. Early 1960 dies used a small date, and the Mint found that the center of the 0 tended to break and fill, so it cut a new master with larger figures. Collectors noticed, and sealed bags of 1960 Small Date cents changed hands for many times face value until the fad collapsed in 1964.

In 1962 the alloy changed quietly: an Act of September 5, 1962 let the Mint drop tin, and the cent became brass. Then came the coin shortage. Mint Director Eva Adams blamed collectors in part, so cents dated 1965, 1966 and 1967 carry no mint mark, though Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco all struck them. There were no proofs in those years; the Mint sold Special Mint Sets instead. Mint marks and San Francisco proofs returned in 1968.

Copper prices drove the next two changes. In 1973 the Mint struck more than a million and a half aluminum cents dated 1974 and tested bronze-clad steel, but the plan died in Congress, opposed by vending machine makers and by doctors who warned that aluminum would not show on an X-ray if a child swallowed one. When copper climbed again, the Mint switched to copper-plated zinc. Philadelphia struck the first zinc cents on January 7, 1982, and Denver followed on October 21, so 1982 cents come in both metals.

The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 required four new reverses for Lincoln's bicentennial, which ended the Memorial design after 2008. Its successors are the 2009 Bicentennial cents and the Union Shield cent.

Design. Lincoln faces right on the obverse, with IN GOD WE TRUST above, LIBERTY to the left and the date to the right. The reverse shows the front of the Lincoln Memorial, with Gasparro's initials, FG, beside the building.

Mint mark. The mint mark is below the date.

Philadelphia never used a P on these cents. West Point (1974-1986) and San Francisco in some later years also struck cents with no letter, so a cent without a mark could come from any of three places. After 1974 a cent with an S is a proof.

Things that cause confusion.

• Small and Large Dates. Besides 1960, the Large and Small Date styles matter in 1970-S, where the Small Date has a level 7 and 0, and in 1982, where a new obverse hub brought slimmer date figures.
• Close AM and Wide AM. Through 1992 every cent had the A and M of AMERICA well apart. From 1993 business strikes have them almost touching, and from 1994 proofs went back to the wide spacing. Coins struck with the wrong reverse are listed below.
• The 1959-D wheat reverse. One 1959-D cent with the old wheat reverse is known. The Secret Service twice judged it genuine, but PCGS concluded in 1993 that it was struck from fabricated dies and will not certify it. Lincoln Cent Resource reports a sale at $31,050 in 2010.

• 1969-S Doubled Die Obverse: bold doubling on the date and mottoes but none on the S. Because counterfeit 1969 doubled dies were already circulating, the Secret Service seized the first genuine coins in 1970, and some were destroyed before the variety was accepted.
• 1970-S Doubled Die Obverse, found on the Large Date coin, and the 1971 Doubled Die Obverse.
• 1972 Doubled Die Obverse: a wide spread on the date and both mottoes, plain without a glass.
• 1983 Doubled Die Reverse: doubled ONE CENT and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, from the first full year of zinc.
• 1984 Doubled Die Obverse, the "doubled ear", and the 1995 Doubled Die Obverse, with doubling on LIBERTY. Many 1995 coins were saved soon after the discovery.
• The 1982 types. NGC names seven circulation types: Philadelphia Large and Small Date in each metal, and Denver Large Date in copper alloy and Large and Small Date in zinc. See the 1982 year page. Two Denver Small Date cents struck in the copper alloy are known, which NGC treats as errors on leftover planchets.
• 1990 No S proof: a die without its S was prepared and used as a proof die. The Mint destroyed 145 it caught.
• Close and Wide AM. The 1992 and 1992-D Close AM cents got the new reverse early. The 1998, 1999 and 2000 Wide AM cents were struck with the proof-style reverse, and the 1998-S and 1999-S Close AM proofs reverse that mistake.
• Special Mint Sets. NGC gives 2,360,000 sets for 1965, 2,261,583 for 1966 and 1,863,344 for 1967, all made at San Francisco.
• 1974 aluminum: an experiment, not a released coin, and treated as government property. One is in the Smithsonian.

The cent was never made of silver. Bronze and brass cents cannot be told apart by eye; NGC doubts even the color differences reported for the earlier tin-free cents of 1944-46. The 1982 switch is the one that matters to collectors: copper-alloy and zinc cents of that year share every date style, so only weight separates them. A copper-alloy cent weighs 3.11 grams and a zinc cent 2.5 grams. USA Coin Book lists the 1982-S proofs only in the copper alloy.