I had this piece walk in the door today. I get the craziest things that walk into my store. This was a test planchet authorized by the US mint but produced by the German corporation VDM as a possible option for the SBA dollar planchets. It's a clad of nickel and copper nickel. It was however scrapped because the planchets were expensive and also because VDM owned exclusive rights to their manufacture. 18 pieces were produced and handed out to a house subcommittee during the Historic Preservation & Coinage hearings held by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 31, 1978. All 18 pieces were then sold to a coin dealer by a member of the subcommittee. My piece is accompanied by it's INS paperwork. It doesn't look like much... but it's definitely a rare bird. Included is a clipping of the auction catalog it was sold in in 1985.
That is very cool. I'm not sure how much it's worth, or who might come along to buy it, but it is definitely unusual and fun. I'm not an SBA fan...I rather detest the coin...but this is something pretty special. Maybe your "friend" is interested? Thanks for showing it to us! Lance.
"Walk in the door"? How the devil do you attract these folks Matt? Unlike most, I'm a fan of Suzy's.........
i like them, their pretty cool! do you happen to know how much a set of them (79-81 and 99) is? uncirculated, or a MS grade? mizozuman2
They're not terribly expensive and you wouldn't have any problems finding them in high grade. Matt could even have a set or two lyin' around.
Interesting piece, and a great story that comes with it - thanks! By the way, Magnimat was used in the German 2 DM (1969~2000) and 5 DM (1975-1996/2001) pieces, and is today used for the "pills" of the €1 coins. It is not a sandwich structure in the sense that you could see the "middle layer", but has a pure nickel core fully "surrounded" by Cu-Ni ... Christian
I just got lucky and happened to know the right person to ask about this one. Most people would have just looked right over it. Running a coin store is similar to fishing. You just toss your lines out an see what bites.... sometimes you catch some strange stuff.
Interesting. Rare piece, rare certificate. The only thing I wonder about is how would you test such a piece to determine what it is? By appearance it would look like a regular copper nickel or nickel planchet. Of course since it is a sandwich type material you might be able to determine that the outer layers are not magnetic but the core is. Of course that would be true for coppernickel clad steel as well. But coppernickel clad steel would have a lower specific gravity. Does it have any of the paperwork from INS saying what tests were done?
It doesn't have any other paperwork besides what is shown. There really isn't much information to be had on these pieces. I would take the piece out and do some tests on it but I think it better to leave it sealed in it's auction flip.
