In my accumulations I had one of those hang ups with old silver for historical display. There was a 1945 Half, Quarter and Dime. The display was falling apart so I took the coins out. I think the coins were fakes for making displays. You can see what looks like bronze under a silver plating. The dime even has what appears to be porosity. This is in the last photo just above the eye. Some photos are attached.
The things people will do... Wouldn't it be easier to just obtain real coins with these dates and place them in the display?
I'm not sure they're fake. Coins put into those displays are often polished to death first, and it looks like that happened to these. The discoloration could just be re-tarnishing. If you have access to an accurate jewelry-type scale, it would be interesting to see what they weigh.
Those weights check out, given the wear on the coins. If they were silver-plated brass or copper, they'd be a good bit lighter, or else thicker. It's possible to make fakes that weigh correctly (by making them thicker), but it's uncommon to make such fakes look that worn. If this set was put together a long time ago, it just wouldn't have been worthwhile to make fakes for it. The coins themselves were cheap, especially at that stage of wear. As for the porosity you're seeing on the dime - I don't think I'm really seeing it in these photos, but the coin could've been corroded prior to the polishing. This is a great time to sell off silver coins that are impaired and don't have sentimental value, by the way!
I agree that they were probably just polished/buffed/whizzed to death to make them shiny for the display. They're common well-circulated coins so why bother faking them? Melt value probably wasn't very much when it was made.
