Try and put together a complete 20th Century type set of circulating iron and zinc coinage in nice Uncirculated condition WITHOUT any rust spots or environmental damage. This won't break the bank as most of these only book for a few dollars, but it will drive you nuts and keep you busy for years! Iron coins rust easily and zinc pieces exhibit nasty spotting even on Uncs. One of your biggest obstacles will be to get a set of the 1916 1,2 and 3 Pfennig WW1 military coins of Germany issued for use in Poland, the Baltic States and Northwest Russia. I've never seen an unspotted example of these. Krause prices these in BU at $100, which is a real laugher for me because I'm sure that few if any exist in that condition.
It's not as big a task as you think. The usage of iron and zinc in coinage virtually disappeared after the early 1960's. Almost all of these were issued in various European countries up to the mid 1940's. The only others I know of are zinc coins of Peru in the late '50s and early '60s and French Indo China under the Vichy government in 1941. There may be others but I'm not aware of them.
The only really easy ones I can think of is the Belgium zincs from WW II and the Peruvian zinc coinage. All the iron and steel I see are rusted.
Can you give us some examples (with pictures!) of iron and zinc coins? I know about Belgium, US (1943 cents), and I know that Sweden made some iron coins. But as far as I know, these coinage metals are fairly uncommon for exactly the reasons you mention.
Austria had a zinc 5 groschen coin, minted for circulation until 1992 and for sets until 1994. But they got ugly pretty quickly too. Christian
I have several nice unspotted examples of the French Vichy and Republic coins but nothing better than EF on the WWI and WWII German zinc coins. A tip about the zinc groschen coins struck by Austria right after the war. I've seen a few examples of them that were struck over 3rd Reich zinc coins with the undercoin detail still visible in places. If you have any of these, check them carefully-you might come up with a real treasure!
During wartime a lot of nations involved in World Wars I and II made zinc and iron coins. Off the top of my head, 1940s Japanese 1 sen, WWI Belgium 10 and 25 centimes, WWII Belgium 1 and 5 franc, WWII Netherlands 25 cents, WWI Germany 5 and 10 pfennig, WWII Germany 5 and 10 pfennig, WWII Norway 2, 5, 10 ore, WWII Sweden 1 and 5 ore, WWI Luxembourg something (25 centimes?), WWII France 20 centimes, WWI Austria 2 heller, WWII Czechoslovakia 20 haleru and 1 koruna, WWII Poland 10 groszy, WWI German occupation coins, I know there are some WWII Denmark coins, WWII French Indochina ... these are just ones that I can picture in my head.
