Realcent.org

I have a bottle of pre-'82 pennies that I always save, and for a while I wasn't separating out the d or s coins from them, so today I checked them for mint marks and also checked the dates to fill holes in my penny books.

One of the things that I noticed is, there are some 1970's and earlier times, but the ones that kept coming up were 1980 and 1981. I haven't checked the production years for those yet, but just found it interesting how plentiful they were compared to other years. I have to admit that I also really like the font of the 1980 year on them. Looks kind of bubbly to me.

1980 and 1981 were the last full copper years. Some of the 1983 and newer zincolns have deteriorated and leave a gap on the zinc dates. I would like to think collectors are saving the pre-80s because they are over 40 years old. It may be due to federal regulations.

Summarizing the Realcent,org topic Prohibition on the Exportation, Melting, or Treatment of 5-Cent and One-Cent Coins

Five-cent and one cent federal regulations during 1967-1969 1973-1978 restrictions occurred.

This was probably due to the high price of copper. Either the copper cents were melted or exported illegaly during 1973-1978 or the mint made less of them during those years not to take a loss on copper cent production.

I vaguely remember penny shortages during the 70s.

These restrictions probably got the ball rolling on zinc coins replacing copper ones. The real cause was Nixon closing the gold window in 1971.