Looking to identify planchet

Is there a department that I missed?

 

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How do you explain the significantly reduced Specific gravity? An acid soak wouldn't do that.

 

Because the appearance of the coin is all we have to analyze, which definitely looks and matches a reaction with chemicals, which also supports the weak details.

I have seen dozens of U.S. coins struck on the wrong stock for both foreign and domestic coins, and even on foreign planchets the details don't appear that weak, fuzzy, and mushy.

Also, I have never heard of any planchet for any country that has a mix of both copper and aluminum. All we have is this guy's flapping gums about an SG test vs. photos we can actually analyze.

This is perhaps another case of someone talking up a good game who will never submit it nor post the results if it were submitted.

 

I don't disagree that it has been acid soaked, but I won't disregard his statement that it has had the SG tested twice, at two different labs, with results that are very close to each other. (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt) And that can't be explained by an acid soaking.

Next I'd like to see the results of an XRF test.

 

At least this OP is going to great lengths to find out what he has. That's a lot more than other members that just argue with the experts have done. I'm curious to know what he finds and hope he can follow up soon.

 

To do a specific gravity, you HAVE to use a liquid, specifically water. The chem dept is the one I would trust, but I'm prejudiced. If the material of the coin had been made "spongy" by the acid, the result could be significantly low. Identifying a composition by specific gravity is like determining a person's age by their height. See if you can get someone to do an XRF on it.

 

I appreciate some of you are genuinely curious. But the thought that somehow copper was mixed with aluminum is absurd. Maybe, and that's a big maybe, I could be persuaded a wee bit more if it were an early WWII era cent where there were known experimental planchets. And in 1973 they did make the experimental 1974-D aluminum cent. But one thing that can't be explained away is obvious chemical damage.

 

Thank you to all for giving me excellent feedback!! That's why I'm here. If acid can make it spongy and through off the sg, then a composition analysis is the best way to go. I've actually have found a jewelry dealer that can test it. He said after years in the gold business and getting stuck with counterfeit gold, he purchased his own. I'm hopeful to have a final answer soon. Thanks again .

 

Do you have an update on this?

 

Considering he hasn't been here since two days after that last posting (a year and a half ago), I would guess he got an answer that dashed his dreams.

 

While I can't comment on the anomalous specific gravity results, the coin has clearly been chemically eroded. The uniformly mushy design and the abnormally thin design rim are dead giveaways. You will also find the diameter to be smaller than normal.