The Beginning
Around 2007, my wife came home with a 1963D silver Roosevelt dime that she had received in change that day. The sight of that dime was a lightning bolt to my memory and I thought – “Hey! I have an old coin collection from my childhood!” When I was eight years old my father would take me the local coin stores in our area. I started a little collection and I loved it! I enjoyed it so much that every time we drove by a coin operated laundromat my heart would jump at the sight of the word “COIN” on the sign – thinking for a split second that the store was actually a coin shop. However, my obsession with coins faded over the years as time passed. Then that little silver dime surfaced – and BOOM I was back in!
What’s a Small Date?
Once my coin fever was reinitiated, my first goal was to complete my Lincoln cent Whitman folders that I had started in my youth. Pretty standard place to start and I assumed it would be an easy task considering I was only focusing on the Memorial cents. Filling in the empty spaces was fairly simple using change from around the house. And then I came to the 1960, 1970S, and 1982 spots that said “Small Date” next to them. I didn’t know what that meant and all the cents I had from those dates looked the same. So, I had to do some research.
The Lincoln Cent Resource
Luckily, at this point in time the internet was well established and conducting research on Lincoln cent small dates proved to not be difficult. In my pursuit for information I stumbled on a website called “The Lincoln Cent Resource”. The site became a daily companion due to its great descriptions and images of the all the small dates. I was further enthused to see all the details on the planchet varieties / small date combinations found in 1982. Early on, the 1982 small date was the easiest for me to spot with my untrained eyes since the different font used for the small date varieties created a noticeable difference in the style of the “2”. It was amazing to me that in 1982 alone there were seven different varieties that I needed to find to complete that year. Finding the necessary 1982 varieties came relatively easy with my naked eye and a digital scale. It was a fun hunt! Moreover, I was ecstatic when I identified my first 1960D small date while looking through the change at my father-in-law’s house. Hunting for the small date and planchet varieties started an intense hunger for more knowledge and the Lincoln Cent Resource became one of my most frequently visited websites.
What events led you to become a Lincoln cent variety collector?