Hi! Any thoughts on why this Lincoln cent would weigh 3.4g instead of 3.1g? I double checked the weight several times and against several other 67 cents. Every time it is .3g heavier. Thanks!
At that weight it's roughly 10% over tolerance. If it took on .29g of crud that would do it. Take a dollar bill and carefully cut 1/3rd of it off and weigh it. Roughly .3g. That's roughly how much extra weight this coin had to take on. A dollar bill is 1g.
Yes I know that but on the scale it says the cent weighs 3.4 but its supposed to weigh 3.11 so how is it a thick planchet im thinking thin?am i missing something.
I will ask, but just to confirm, not say something bad. 1. Do you have a calibration weight that came with the scale ( most likely no) 2. Is the scale properly tared before putting the coin on? 3. Do you have anything that says 1 gram on it? a single sweetner package usually weighs one gram of sweetner ( it will say on the package) and can be used as a comparison. Jim
Since your scale reads to tenths of a gram only, your coin could be between 3.35 and 3.45 actually Still a nice find
The planchets are cut from sheets. Not all sheets or even a small section of the sheet can be thicker or thinner than it should be.
thanks for the suggestions. I did calibrate with 500g. That’s what you have to do with this scale. It’s just a cheap scale. I did do tare several times. the scale is definitely not great, the same coin can vary by .4g sometimes, but this one is always .3 heavier than any other coin m weighing at the same time.
As Paddy says a thicker planchet. While it is out of tolerance, it's only slightly out. 2.98- 3.24. But it is cool and worth keeping. And as Collecting said, they used to roll out the sheets, sometimes they are thinner, and sometimes they are thicker. (Not sure how they do the zinc junk for today.)
Same way, cast the zinc into ingots, roll the ingots out into strip, punch blanks for the strip, upset the edges of the blanks. Then barrel plate the upset zinc blanks with copper. Steps are the same as with the copper alloy cents except for the plating.