1998 Lincoln Cents 1959 to Date PR69DCAM

History

The copper-plated zinc planchet used for this cent dates to 1982, when the rising price of copper led Treasury officials to worry that bronze cents would be hoarded for their metal content. Replacing the alloy also cut production cost, and the format carried forward unchanged through the 1998 proof coinage. The obverse portrait is older still, Victor D. Brenner's Lincoln bust of 1909, with the mint mark placed below the date.

Details

Brenner designed the obverse and Frank Gasparro the Lincoln Memorial reverse. The coin is copper-plated zinc, a planchet core of 99.2 percent zinc and 0.8 percent copper under a pure copper plating, which works out to roughly 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper overall. Weight is reported at 2.49 to 2.50 grams and diameter at 19.00 to 19.05 millimeters, with a plain edge. The San Francisco Mint struck 2,086,507 proof cents for 1998, distributed in the year's proof sets.

Features

Lincoln faces right on the obverse above the date and the S mint mark; the reverse shows the Memorial building with Gasparro's FG initials to its right. PCGS applies the Deep Cameo designation to examples with heavy frost on the devices against deeply mirrored fields, the equivalent of NGC's Ultra Cameo label. The normal 1998-S proof uses the Wide AM reverse, on which the A and M of AMERICA are clearly separated. A small number of 1998-S proofs were instead struck from a circulation-style Close AM reverse, on which those two letters touch or nearly touch; that variety is catalogued as FS-901 and carries a separate PCGS number, 507302.

Notable facts

• Proof cents used the Close AM reverse in 1993, after which the Wide AM reverse returned in 1994 and remained on proofs for the balance of the series, while circulation strikes kept Close AM through 2008.
• Coin World reports that the 1999-S Close AM proof is more common than its 1998-S counterpart.
• The crossover ran in both directions: die-variety researcher John Wexler identified a circulation-issue 2000 cent with the proof Wide AM reverse in 2001, and a 1998 Wide AM circulation cent surfaced shortly afterward.
• PCGS estimates 1,942,537 survivors in all grades and 1,845,411 in PR65 or better, placing the issue at R-1.0.
• The auction record for a normal Wide AM example is $1,265 for a PR70 sold on June 2, 2005, while a PR70 Deep Cameo Close AM FS-901 brought $5,160 on February 11, 2024.