Hi all, I love this forum and the amount of expertise found here. I am still new to coin collecting and found some nickels that have some interesting coloring. I was hoping to get some information about how these nickels came to be the way they are. So without further ado: The first is a 2013 D that has a bluish black blotchy look to it on the obverse and a similar coloring on the reverse with an added tint of copper in spots. The surface doesn't appear to be pock marked or anything. I'm at a loss with this one. Maybe corrosive damage? The second is a 1995 D and has blues, Coppers, blacks, and yellows on both sides. My uneducated opinion is that it was perhaps subjected to salt water? But I'm still not sure. And finally, another 2013 D that has a consistent black tone and uniform striations across both sides. I don't think the coin was scraped across the ground or something abrasive because the striations look fairly uniform and don't appear to cut into the face of the coin. I was thinking perhaps an annealing error, but I'm not sure that type of error would produce striations like this. I appreciate any feedback you might have! Thanks for looking!!
I agree.. Environmental Damage caused by Chemicals, elements exposure and circulation wear Chemicals could be soda, coffee and tea stains. Imagine a cup holder of a car with change in it and the driver spills their drink into it.
I once picked up (carefully) a glued together block of change at the car wash. I am guessing a driver spilled his drink in the console on his change where it remained for a while. I carried the block home and left it in a bucket of soapy water. When all was said and done, the coke-cola glue had left most of the change all variations of unusual colors.
Coke's got phosphoric acid, in addition to the "carbonic acid" from carbonation. As the water and CO2 evaporate, the phosphoric acid stays. It'll do a number on any reactive metal, and copper and cupronickel definitely count.
Yikes, just one more reason to avoid soda. Lol. So is the blotchy appearance of the first one a result of imperfections in the metal? Or is that where there was more of a concentration of the chemical that caused the damage? Thanks for your response, btw.
Super interesting! Is the acid also responsible for the striations on the last nickel? Thanks for your response, btw!
On a note from the Amer.Jrn. kidney Disease, they have a pdf chart on phosphoric content of popular drinks. Several times more than in coke are found in some Starbucks coffee drinks, Vitamin water drinks, Sobe's, Power drinks. etc. Especially the fruit flavored water and teas. They need real Tangy taste for fruit flavored! Diet Coke has a little less than regular.
Maybe. Sometimes the alloy used to make coins doesn't get mixed as thoroughly as it should, leaving "blobs" where the metal content is slightly different. As the metal gets rolled out into sheets, those blobs stretch out along the rolling direction. So the blanks that get punched out of the metal stock can have "stripes" of varying composition. If the different areas tone (or corrode) differently, you can end up with visible stripes. Or, there could have been patterns in the way the goop got stuck to the coin. Hard to say.
