pssshhht. I've got butter fingers, and I still do this less than most people I know, lol. I was the ONLY one of 3 over Christmas sorting through a bag of 100-1940's walking liberty halves who touched edges and used carpet instead of a table. ;-)
Yeah, my feeling was that the type 2's were probably not in my grouping...I thought I saw bumps of islands (though I didn't trust my eyes to be able to tell). I had to hunt for craters though to at least distinguish between versions 1&3... (http://www.jmscoins.com/store/pages.php?pageid=18 ...see bottom)
Bleach test = FAILED! As one could guess, I s'pose, since they turned goldish color with ice I could figure they aren't even silver plated. Boo.
Merged the two topics. So if you see something twice here, its not your eyes or the late night/early morning hour. Christian
Clad IKES weigh 22.50 grams...SILVER IKES weight 24.50 grams...THIS is the only test for accuracy..if plated, they will be more like 23.00 grams...
FYI, I'm pretty sure the answer is actually: Gold plated?! Well somehow it got past me initially and at least 1 bank teller. Fascinating. (And they'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for us pesky kids.) Thank you, all!
I actually have a silver-plated state quarter, and a silver- and a gold-plated Kennedy half. Plating the coin doesn't necessarily constitute counterfeit. State quarters were a popular item to plate with silver and gold and sell as "collector sets" on a well known TV shopping network. The coin is still worth it's face value ($1.00).