While going through nickel rolls, I found something interesting tonight. It is what appears, at first glance, to be a 1985d Jefferson struck on an improper planchet. It is bronze or gold in color, the diameter is the same as a regular nickel and so is the thickness. So this rules out a wrong denomination planchet. I don't have a scale to measure it. I took some photos but I'm still figuring out out to take good coin pics so please forgive the quality as they were taken with my phone. I first thought that maybe the nickel layer had stripped off but then I thought that nickels were alloy and not clad layers so that's not possible. Also, the whole coin -- obverse, reverse, and edges -- are consistently the same color. Is it possible that a roll of blanks was improperly annealed (is that the correct word)? Or is this post-mint damage. It could possibly be but it looks too "natural" for damage. So I'll leave it to you experts. The pics truly don't do justice to the luster it has. What do you think?
Even though I've been collecting for many years, I'm still a little fuzzy on the production process. Would an "improper anneal" be the result of a wrong mixture (i.e., too much copper in proportion to the amount of nickel)? Or would it instead be a problem with the amount of heat used?
Annealing is a heating/cooling protocol. Many improperly annealed nickels come out as the "Black Beauties" we sometimes see, but the coppery ones are often the result of "environmental" factors.
If you google Black Beauty Nickel you can see darker Improperly Annealed examples from the late 1960's. Then there are others that have an orange/copper Hue to them such as these 2 from my collection -
Yup..."A little knowledge..." Apparently if the copper coming to the surface because of the annealing oxidizes we can get black copper oxide. Thanks, live and learn.
Mine is very similar in color to your slabbed 64D but it would probably only grade AU at best so it's not worth it to get it slabbed. But it is definitely a keeper as a curiosity piece. Thanks everyone for all the feedback!