Was searching thru several hundred Kennedy halves and came across this 1971D that appeared different than the others. I examined the side of the coin and found that it's primarily a silver color as opposed to the 300 others that were mostly copper colored. I weighed the coin along with several others as a comparison and found that the weight was different than the other halves. Then I performed the gravity test in a glass of water on a scale and divided that # with the weight and found it to be different than the others as well. I'm probably not as well versed as you guys in error coins or coins in general so I come to you for information on the 71' silver Kennedy halves. Could this be a 40% silver Kennedy?
That looks like a normal clad edge to me. When the blank is punched out of the strip, the top cladding layer gets dragged down across the copper center layer; that's why the "copper band" is usually offset toward either the obverse or reverse face of the coin. Sometimes the band can look quite narrow. For 40% silver halves, the center band tends to look darker gray rather than red, although I've seen it look orange-ish on uncirculated coins. The weight difference between a 40% silver half and a clad half is quite small, and the weight of a clad half can vary a bit. Can you show us what your scale shows as the actual weight for this coin, and maybe for a known 40% half and a known clad half as well? Welcome to CoinTalk!
I was getting a reading of 11.1 g from said coin while the others were 11.3. The difference was negligable on the scale so I performed the gravity test and found said coin weighs 1.1 g while the others read around 1.3-1.4. When I divided the weight of the coin with the gravity weight the outcome was more substantial, 10.09 g. The others were around 8.69 g give or take.
I could be wrong but wouldn't there be a slight copper edge on a coin if it's made up of only 40% silver?
That's a difference in the wrong direction. 1964 90% coins weigh 12.5g (+/- 0.259g), 40% coins weigh 11.5g (+/- 0.4g), and clad coins weigh 11.34g (+/- 0.454g). So in general 40% silver coins weigh more than clad coins, but there's a good bit of overlap in their weight ranges. Each of the weights you mention is within tolerance for a clad coin. The heavier ones are within tolerance for both clad and 40%, but the lighter one is barely within tolerance for 40%. The 80% copper/20% silver alloy in the center of 40% coins is still a different color from pure copper; it's lighter and more orangeish. Specific gravity can be useful sometimes, but it's really, really hard to get useful measurements from something the size of a coin with home equipment. The measurement errors swamp the differences you're trying to measure.
The edges of the 40% halves show no copper. Yours does. It's not 40%. The 90% are whiter and the 40% are "grayer". But any with the copper ring are clad.
Appreciate it. I guess that answers my question, although not the answer I was hoping for. Back to hunting.
Yea your right about moving in the wrong direction. Bummer! Thanks for the info! You guys are awesome!
