How can one determine whether or not a coin is struck in the wrong metal? This Nickel is definitely circulated but everything about it screams COPPER to me. Any opinions? Also a Dime with same/similar appearance....
I cleaned out my fish tank and in doing so found that my children had put coins in the tank. This is exactly what they looked like .
LOL, OK fair enough, now if I were to scratch this Nickel...& it were to still show copper? Then could it possibly be copper?
The best way to figure out if a coin is struck on the wrong planchet is to weigh it on a good scale. This will help solve 99% of these type of questions. If it was a nickel struck on an penny planchet, it would be thinner than what we see in the 3rd photo, and it would weigh half as much as a normal nickel (2.5g vs 5g). If for whatever strange reason a copper planchet with the exact dimensions of a nickel planchet made it into the mint, it would have a slightly different weight than a normal nickel.
Anything is possible, but like some of the other guys have posted the best way to determine is by weight and dimension. The best advice I can give is to let a coin dealer examine and give thier opinion.
Slightly less yes, unfortunately still within the tolerance range for a normal nickel so it wouldn't tell you anything.
I have a 1999 copper nickel and it looks like its errored around the edge and in other places can anyone tell me what it may b worth I can shoe picture
Nickels are made from an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel. It's mixed together and the resulting "nickel" is not copper colored. It's almost 100% that your nickel is just toned, rusted or environmentally damaged. The exceptions being if it were struck on a cent planchet before 1982, but then it would be very small or if it were improperly annealed. Neither one is likely. I am going to go out on a limb and say yours is worth a nickel. But you never know. People win the Powerball all the time. So it's possible.
Sometimes they put the nickels in the same oven as the pennies what happens is the copper a little bit of it evaporates and sticks to the nickels that is more than likely what happened here it's definitely not a penny planchet
You’ve got a few things confused. Occasionally, improperly annealed blanks can take on a reddish or coppery tone depending on the furnace temps and atmosphere. At one time it was thought that this occurred due a fine layer of copper being deposited on the blanks and sintered onto the metal. However, this has been shown not be the root cause and sintered planchet errors do not exist. (See annealing errors at WWW.error-ref.com). BTW: This thread is over 6 years old. It's always good to check the posting dates when commenting as many of the original people may no longer be around.
Look at the outer devices - are they clipped? The usual answer is no, so another indicator like weight that can quickly disqualify a wrong planchette event.
