1983-D Dime - Not an error

Discussion in 'Error Coins' started by ksmooter61, Sep 24, 2025.

  1. ksmooter61

    ksmooter61 Scary ghost - BOO!

    but I have no idea why this was done. Found CRH, the coin weighs 2.04g, so about 90% of normal. The entire circumference has been ground out between the faces. Considering this is a very worn, even ugly little coin I can't imagine it was ever mounted in any sort of bezel or used as jewelry or in a display.

    Some things just make you go, why?

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  3. paddyman98

    paddyman98 I'm a professional expert in specializing! Supporter

    It's environmental exposure toning damage to the Cupronickel clad and harsh chemical errosion to the copper center. The errosion will wear down the edge and have the appearance of your Dime.

    By the way. Even though your coin is damaged. Never use metal tweezers to hold coins!

    One day you might a true mint error and accidentally damage the surface.
     
  4. SensibleSal66

    SensibleSal66 U.S Casual Collector / Error Collector

    Acid damage to the coin has worn away the copper layer. ;)
     
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  5. ksmooter61

    ksmooter61 Scary ghost - BOO!

    Thank you for the comments, much appreciated. I obviously would never use tweezers on any potential gem, but this dime was well past the point of having any value beyond 10¢.

    Curious as to what chemical/acid would eat away that much copper, and do so consistently around the rim? It's a fairly interesting oddity to me.
     
  6. KBBPLL

    KBBPLL Well-Known Member

    I think any acidic environment would do it, given enough time. The cupronickel alloy outer layers are corrosion resistant and the copper inner layer is not, so this is the result. At least that's what I recall from similar threads.
     
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  7. ksmooter61

    ksmooter61 Scary ghost - BOO!

    Thanks @KBBPLL. I am trying to envision an acidic environment that would do this and could use some help:

    Is Dr. Evil taking batches of old clad coinage and boiling them in a vat of highly concentrated bat guano to use as a weapon against Captain Good Guy?

    Maybe the Denver mint realized they had over-produced their quota of dimes in 1983, and dumped them into a swamp, the same swamp where the government had secretly disposed of past-its-date alien rocket fuel, only to be discovered by a poor cottonmouth snake herder who cashed them in to become not so poor?

    Seriously, all good, I just need an example to let my mind accept the obvious reality.
     
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  8. SensibleSal66

    SensibleSal66 U.S Casual Collector / Error Collector

    No example here but I do have one somewhere. Just happens to be a dime also. I gave it to Big Foot the other day. His GF, The Forest Fairy, said she hasn't seen him in a week or so. Go figure! :rolleyes:
     
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  9. J-Man

    J-Man Junior Member

    You need an example to accept that it was acid?

    https://www.statista.com/statistics...W-QaV1hRwh_Q0I8c1xVKtm6UUAUGb76bjzqtortZvAM8W

    The US produces over 8 million tons of sulfuric acid per year.

    Many places that produce steel objects will have some sort of pickling operation to remove scale. The same applies to most other metals.

    Of course some places will use hydrochloric acid rather than sulfuric.

    Ammonium nitrate is a very common fertilizer with many million tons produced in the US each year using nitric acid.

    In every one of these factories there are workers who drink coffee and have change in their pockets that may fall our when they retrieve their pen.
     
  10. ksmooter61

    ksmooter61 Scary ghost - BOO!

    Hey J-man, just having some fun here. I believe acid exists, not a flat-earther. But I would like a clearer picture of your example, maybe something like this?

    circa summer of 1983 - In a small Wisconsin factory producing steel manhole covers for the city of Sheboygan, there is a worker drinking a cup of joe, while strolling along a catwalk suspended over a vat of sulfuric acid. Needing a pen to stir the creamer in his coffee, he reaches quickly into his shirt pocket to grab one (properly separated from his button-up shirt with a custom pocket protector of course), and in so doing a dime dislodges itself from within his pants pocket, plunging down into the vile liquid. Many months later, the vat is drained, and the dregs are set aside and given to visiting school children on a field trip as souvenirs. The wayward dime, along with a golf ball-marker, several paperclips and an electrical panel knock-out end up in the possession of Suzy-Lou, who places it lovingly into her pink piggy bank.

    Flash forward 40 years to the front range north of Denver. Suzy-Lou, twice divorced and living in a one-bedroom apartment, is a telemarketer working from home, and has a sudden urge for a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, work has been slow of late, and without any funds she is forced to break open the precious piggy. Grabbing a handful of shiny coins, she races to the local grocery store and dumps them gleefully into the welcoming CoinStar machine, which robs her of 18% and prints out a coupon for just enough to buy that delicious hot steaming cup of scrumptiousness.

    Later that week, Loomis relieves the big green money machine of its loot, and the much-travelled dime is sorted, counted, stacked and rolled, and delivered to the local Big-Named-Bank, where a diligent Coin Roll Hunter purchases it and discovers its wonder.

    But here is the real conundrum. How the heck did a dime minted in Denver find its way to Wisconsin in the same year? Some things just bely belief.
     
  11. KBBPLL

    KBBPLL Well-Known Member

    Or a real-life example with embellishments. Great-grandpa Joe has a pocket watch and fob made from an 1876 half dollar. 1876 is a special year of course. Maybe he got it from his father, or maybe he's just that old. The fob slips off the leather strap and disappears into the pile of newspapers on the couch. Gramps is sad - now where did that fob go? Gramps is also a mild hoarder, and the newspapers go into the pile stacked in the corner of his living room.

    40 years later, gramps has passed away and his great-grandchildren are finally cleaning out his house. The Boy Scouts come around on their newspaper recycling drive, or the family takes the giant stack of newspaper to FSC Paper Corp themselves. FSC pays by the pound on Saturdays after all, and there's a lot. Their stacks go into a giant pile with all the other Saturday recyclers, then joins the 800 pound bales waiting for the pulper from the giant warehouse filled with bales from the major recyclers in the region, which have been delivered by the semi-truck full.

    A college kid laborer has a summer job and gets assigned as a "puller", and dutifully clips the large diameter baling wire from the massive newspaper bales, being careful to always wear his thick gloves and face shield. These wires are under a lot of force, which he has learned the hard way. He still has the scab healing over from when a wire twanged all the way around the bale and the pointy end buried into his upper arm.

    8000 pounds of newspaper is then shoved into the giant bucket, the weight is recorded, the massive bucket goes up on cables to a track which brings it around to await being dumped into the pulper. Grandpa's watch fob joins the bucket along with whatever else people have lost or hidden in their newspapers. The pulper is a brew of all sorts of nasty chemicals, which turns the newspaper back into pulp. The pulp then goes through a long complicated process and gets spit out the other end of the massive factory as rolls of fresh newspaper.

    Later that summer, the college kid laborer is reassigned back to regular labor, and his job for today is to clean the "clean out pit", where all the junk that isn't newspaper and didn't get completely dissolved by the nasty pulper chemicals ends up. It's a disgusting job, but there's also the possibility of a treasure hunt. Others have found gold, diamonds, currency that hasn't completely dissolved, and of course coins. Today the laborer gets lucky, and finds Grandpa's watch fob.

    OK, it doesn't have the "railroad" edge, because it's a solid silver alloy, but I have no doubt a clad coin would turn out like yours. So that's another way this could happen. :)
    1876_50.jpg
     
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  12. ksmooter61

    ksmooter61 Scary ghost - BOO!

    @KBBPLL now THAT is an example I can get with! Love the story and embellishments, but that college kid sounds kind of familiar...

    Cool US centennial fob, I like the toning the pulper did to it.

    I wonder what those chemicals would do to a simple copper cent, just dissolve them completely? Or would they become unrecognizable blobs?
     
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