[anita.sweetser]

  Does any one know what the chemical compositon of a new penny is?  And how it differs from an older one besides the copper.

[savoy7]

I don't know what you mean by besides the copper?

Around 1982, the US government found that copper was too expensive for a penny.  They went coating zinc with copper.  Just give the edge of a penny a scrap with a file and you will see the zinc on the inside.  

By the way, this wasn't the first time the penny changed - WWII the copper was removed for a time because of the war effort.

savoy out