If you spend $40 to have it certified as an error (minted on a zinc planchet without the copper plating), it may bring $15. Otherwise, it's worth 1 cent. These unfinished planchet error coins generally sell for 50 cents to a dollar at coin shows.
All 1983 Lincoln cents are Zinc. Spend it.
There is no such thing.
if the size of your penny is the same size as a copper penny and your penny is SOLID silver then a silver penny would be about 2.1 grams and today(june 25 2012) silver price is about $28.79 an ounce and there are 31.1 grams in 1 ounce making you penny worth about $1.90 but since the (kind of ) rarity it would be about $3 to somebody on ebay(+shipping) hope i helped :)
a 1983 penny is only worth its face value of 1 cent
The U.S. never minted a silver penny. It would have more than a dime's worth of silver in it. 1983 and later cents are all made of copper-coated steel so you may have a cent where the copper coating was removed with acid (worth only a penny) or was never plated in the first place (worth a significant amount). It would need to be inspected by a dealer who handles error coins.
A 1983 Lincoln cent is actually copper plated zinc, 1982 was the last year for copper pennies. It's just a penny.
All pennies since 1983 are made almost entirely of zinc, covered with a thin coating of copper. Therefore, what you have is either a zinc penny that did not get its copper coating (worth abuot a dollar), or a normal penny that has been silver plated (no added value). You should be able to determine this by weight. A normal penny will weigh 2.5 grams. So if yours weighs less, then it's missing its copper coating. If it weighs more, then it's been silver plated.
By 1983, Canadian coins were no longer made of silver. It's worth 50 cents.
Lincoln cents from 1983 to 2011 weigh 2.5 grams.
August 12, 2009 The value of the copper in a 1983 Lincoln Cent is .004455 cents.
From 1983 to date all Lincoln cents weigh 2.50 grams.
The only steel pennies were made in 1943 to save copper for the war effort.