Please chime in: Are steel cents "coated" and current zinc cents "plated?"

For what it's worth to galvanize steel, sheets are heated to nearly the melting point of zinc and then they are immersed in liquid zinc. Now days this is a continuous process with long coils passing through long furnaces before running into the bath. In WW II they were most probably heated and then lowered in in batches.

Temperature of the metal is the primary determinant of how thick the zinc remains on the steel.

 

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I have seen many pieces of the zinc coated "webbing" that was left after the blanks were punched out. I believe Fred Weinberg had an 8 foot long piece.

 

THESE WERE NOT GALVANIZED. THEY WERE ELECTROPLATED.

How many times do I have to repeat this?

 

Roger Burdette posts on the NGC and PCGS forums. I'm not sure if he's a member here, but I've alerted him to this thread and hopefully will be able to get any further questions answer.

 

@Kentucky

 

Ok ok

 

Cheap steel for 1943 cents was coated with zinc by several processes, depending on which company was supplying planchets. Although the Mint specified thickness of zinc, the reality was that no one much cared. Steel strip was electroplated, hot dipped, hot rolled, heated and sprayed with molten zinc then rolled and just about any inexpensive process available. This inconsistency was also why the weight of 1943 cents was increased by 1-grain. This allowed extreme over- and under-weight planchets to be accepted as legal coins. (I did not got into a lot of detail in the book because production cents was not part of the core subject.)

Hope this helps.

 

Roger, my understanding from the book is that many of those methods were the experimental cents. Your book implies that electroplated blanks were the final choice, and strongly suggests that galvanized steel was extremely unacceptable.

Can you clarify some what the actual production cents were, even if they weren't the focus of your book?

 

You posted it;

"Initially, the San Francisco Mint cut their own blanks from zinc coated strip. The weight of these coins was higher than specified for the first 200,000 struck."

I certainly wasn't trying to be misleading. I simply thought some might be interested.

 

Do you @Fred Weinberg ?

 

Uh...Physics has this one, I think. Just wondering why so many people say the edges weren't plated.

 

Burdette?

 

Sorry for the confusion - the "zinc coated strip" here was still electroplated, and definitely not galvanized. If you read Roger's description of the experiments, the galvanized experiments led to excessive flaking that clogged the dies. Galvanized steel was quickly ruled out as unacceptable.

 

So the strips were plated (using different methods depending on which company made the metal sheets) before the blanks were punched out? If so, that means the edges were not plated.

 

Some of the strips were plated. Some of the blanks were plated. What's becoming clear is that there is no clear answer.

And what I'd like to see - everyone who owns a steel cent, take a picture of the edge. Show us these "unplated" edges.

If the edges were unplated, they would be subjected to higher levels of corrosion. I would expect a large number of cents to have significant edge corrosion while the zinc'ed areas were less corroded. That is not my experience in observing these steel cents. But, I'm open to new evidence. So show us the edges of your steelies, and let's see what the coins show!

 

Well, if only the strip was plated for some, and then they were punched out, how could the edges possibly be plated? It is like if I paint cardboard, when I punch out a piece, the edge wouldn't have paint. The only way a steel cent punched out would have its edge plated would be if it was then replated. Right?

 

Yes, that helps. Thank you sir for chiming in.

 

The planchet would have to undergo a second plating process to plate the edges (which is complicated and cumbersome, and doesn't sound like something the mint would do.) I'm guessing the first planchets that I mentioned above may have had their edges unplated, but the rest after that first 200,000 from San Fran do.

The planchets at the other mints were all plated after they were punched.

Now, I only own one steelie (which also happens to be an S). I took a look at the edge, and the edge is definitely plated. I'm very interested to see if someone can produce a picture of an unplated edge.

 

The strip was plated with zinc, but not the planchets, so the edges have no zinc on them.