Owner Comments:
In its 2nd pass by the Earth in the 20th century, in February 1986, Halley’s comet was at its closest proximity to Earth. Several space agencies took advantage of this to observe and send probes out to the comet. These included Japan’s Suisei and Sakigake, the Soviet Union’s Vega 1 and Vega 2, and European Space Agency’s Giotto and NASA’s International Cometary Explorer, making up what was called “Halley’s Armada. Giotto became the first probe to observe the comet up close - from about 600 kilometers away when it was closest to the comet. The next closest probe that year never got closer than 8,000 kilometers.
March 1986 was a big month in the history of human space travel because this was also the month that the Soviet Union launched the core unit of the Mir Space Station - the first space station ever built by man. It entered service shortly thereafter and would remain in use until Russia abandoned it in June 2000, re-entering the atmosphere in March 2001, almost exactly 15 years after it was launched.
Growing up, there was a kid living on my street that named his pet chihuahua “Mir.” Always seemed like an old choice to me.
This was also the year that the Polar BEAR (Beacon and Research) Satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California - in November of 1986. It was a military project looking to study communication interference caused by solar flares, other solar activity, and the aurora borealis. The satellite weighed over 250 lbs and the body was taken from an old Navy satellite that had been at the National Air and Space Museum for 8 years before it was taken back and repurposed.
97.5% Zinc, 2.5% copper (Copper-Plated Zinc)
Mintage: 4,442,866,698
2.5 grams
19mm diameter
Designer: Victor D Brenner (Obverse), Frank Gasparro (Reverse)
Lincoln Memorial Reverse (1959-2008)
I think this is the only coin in the original set from 2008 that we didn't have graded ourselves - and that’s probably why it’s pretty much the only one of the original coins from 2008 that is still in the set today. If memory serves, we found this coin at a good price before we made our big submission of coins pulled from mint sets bought at coin shows.
Since we'd already picked up this high-grade example, we didn't submit any of the 1986-D cents from the mint sets for grading. That's probably for the best given that the 1986-P we submitted came back as an MS65 and was replaced not long after that with an MS67 to match this coin