1943 Steel Cents - What Happened to the Copper? - WWII Fact

more questions...

 

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Also, I think in 1944-1946 they actually did add tin (to satisfy the law) to the mix but not enough to truly make it bronze.

 

Your question was too lonely.

 

Coinage act of 1864 mandated 95% copper, 5% tin and zinc...

 

That is the fact, I was just questioning the why. Perhaps zinc free of tin was difficult to obtain? The tin would have hardened the alloy, but why not set a percentage? ETC.

 

Yes, I knew I wasn't answering your question. I just thought it was interesting to research and post facts found along the way.

On an aside, the same act was supposed to be the one where they added "In God We Trust" but I don't see it. Probably got it wrong.

 

@Conder101 might know why tin was mandated.

To continue to speculate, maybe they just had more confidence/experience in bronze(w/ tin) vs brass (w/out tin) at that time. It was a "known" entitiy perhaps.

 

Odd bit of trivia -- at least 25,000,000 1943-dated brass coins were intentionally minted at the Philadelphia mint. But they were minted for the Belgian Congo. Belgium itself had surrendered to Germany in 1940, but Pierre Ryckmans, the Viceroy, declared the colony would remain loyal to the Allies.

 

I don't know for sure but I have a possibility. Tin has a very low melting point, even lower than zincs, but it has a very high boiling point. This may have allowed the tin to help keep the zinc from boiling off during the alloying process. The tin/zinc combination could be raised to a higher temperature so that the copper would melt/dissolve faster. The boiling point of zinc is lower than the melting point of copper, so normally in order to make a brass you have to melt the zinc and then slowly dissolve the copper into it. Only once the zinc is fully melded with the copper can the temperature be raised to the point where more copper can be melted into it.

Your zinc melts 787°F that a mixture of 80% zinc 20% tin might be able to raise that to 1500° and allow the copper to mix with that much more easily.