I Bought a lot of world coins and, seperately, a lot of mostly silver world coins (though not all were silver). In the lot of mostly silver coins, there was this copper-nickel-looking 5 centavo coin. I thought nothing of it, then when I went through my world coins I found an identical looking coin from 1964, except that this one was clearly bronze. Also, to help pick out the non-silver coins, I waved a chunk of neodymium over the lot and the copper-nickel one was loosely attracted to the magnet, whereas the bronze one was not. I went to a couple coin catalog sites that I know of, but they insist that 5 centavo coins from 1954 through 1969 were bronze coins. the nickel 5 centavo coin is holed, so I first considered that perhaps it was just a novelty piece, but comparing the two with a 10x loupe, I can not find any differences. I ran a couple searches and did find that someone was asking about a copper-nickel 1960 5 centavo. The "expert" that responded said that they can easily worth 100$ and can be worth upwards of $300-$400 depending on condition. So first of, is this the real deal? Secondly, why is it magnetic when most 75% Cu 25% Ni coins are not magnetic, unless this has a greater percentage of nickel? And lastly, what is it worth, given it's condition?
You are right in that copper-nickel coins are usually not magnetic. It is possible that your coin might have been tampered with and plated by a magnetic metal (e.g. nickel) through galvanoplastic process in order to be sold for a copper-nickel one. A copper-nickel 5 Centavos of 1960 is valuated by Krause catalog at $250 in VF. Your coin is most probably a fake and even if not it is still very seriousely damaged by a hole. Thus it's very unlikely that any serious collector would be willing to add it to his collection and pay any significant amount of money for it.
Turner13, as paddyman pointed out this a very old thread. To answer your question, this coin is usually seen in a brass composition - yellow when new, turning orange and then brown. Those are extremely common and have little value. A few were made in CuNi (the same composition as a U.S. nickel) and those would be the valuable ones.
