Hi All, Thank you for your help in advance. I recently found a clad dime with no band on the sides. It is missing the band that wraps the coin on the sides. Is this an error, if so what kind? I will try to post pictures when I get home from work. I can not seem to find any error coins like this. It is really weird. It's like both sides are fine but empty in the middle since no band is there. Thanks.
It's a dryer coin. Not a mint error and very common. Then again, it might have been kept in an acidic environment. Copper being softer than nickel, acid will erode the copper core much faster than it will erode the nickel outer layers.
Thanks for your help so far. It does not look like a dryer coin based on the look. It looks like the opposite. Just two perfect pieces of clad on top and bottom with the reeding missing. It is like it was never there and hollow around the sides.
This isn't the picture because i am at work but imagine if the reeding was missing and it was hollow in the middle.
Okay... I suppose that is what happens when one does not actually read the post. My apologies. It may be useful to provide photos of the obverse and/or reverse, but the coin is not an error; it is damaged. Someone else will likely come along who can better explain how this can happen.
Thanks all, so it's caused by acid? The front and back are almost flawless though. I will try to get a picture of those later. I thought it was damage at first but when I looked at it with a loop it doesn't look like there was too much damage other than a little normal wear. You're probably right but I don't know much about these kinds of errors or damage yet. Thanks!
The core is 100% copper. The outer layers are an alloy of 75% nickel and 25% copper. Copper being softer than nickel would be eroded faster by an acid, creating that gouge around the edge of your coin.
If you look, you see the reeding on the Cu-Ni cladding, but the copper has been dissolved away. Acid.
Reverse your percentages and you'll be correct. Nickel is extremely hard and as such, a 75% Nickel Cladding would chew up the dies. Heck, even nickels aren't 75% nickel.