1964 copper nickel ?????

the other night i came across a different nickel i tossed it aside and went on checking. i checked it again and it was copper collored on both sides and the edge. today i took it to a coin shop to have it weighed and get an opinion on it i tweighed a little over 2 grams a regular niclel is 5 grams . it is thiner than a 1964 nickel he said it wasn't buffed down the details to clear and it didn't look like it was plated. a cent is around 3 grams. so i am not clear what i have. any sugestions welcome . oldest kid has my camara so cant take picture yet sorry.

wvrick

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

A cent would be 3 grams.
A nickel would be 5 grams.
A dime would be 2.50 grams.
No pics or use of the cap key make this thread a bit hard to help with.
Best of luck.

 

http://www.collectableboard.com/for...uarter-first-us-clad-coinage-experiments.html

this here is an interesting read:

here is a climpet:

While INCO originally endlessly promoted a different alloy to replace silver coinage in 1964, the U.S. Mint requested that a copper-nickel clad coin be tested. After a series of tests, INCO and the U.S. Mint decided that the "sandwich" clad coinage we have today would be the best replacement

BACK TOO ME

Since this coin was never supposed too make it into circulation, it is hard too put a price on it since very few exist, so therefore, you could have a very rare coin in hand

 

Better than 999 times out of a thousand coins such as this turn out to simply be plated, discolored, or in a few cases sintered with copper dust from the annealing furnaces. Every so often one does turn out to be struck on a wrong metal planchet.

I'm not sure what jmc7983 is talking about since we are talking about a nickel which was never struck in a clad composition and there were never any patterns made in clad composition, and the original post never made any reference to this coin looking like it was made of clad composition.

 

I was the primary research metallurgist for the coinage materials INCO developed in 1963-65. The primary development work was done in INCO's Bayonne NJ Research lab but a little work was done in INCO's Huntington WV facilities. The piece referred to above was probably a test piece that the Huntington people used to test the alloys and production procedures we developed in Bayonne. I retained Gilroy Roberts to develop our Paul D Merica dies and all the test pieces were done either at Bayonne or at Sterling Forest Lab when that opened in mid 1964. I was at the 1965 Washington Treasury US Mint meeting when we introduced the Ni Si permalloy coinage material. We were developing the currently used Cu clad cupronickel at the same time. The alloy development was designed to the test parameters that coinage vending machines utilized to verify the authenticity of the 10, 25 and 50 cent US coins.

The US mint became aware of the clad material we developed in 1965 and DuPont's cladding process was one of the production methods evaluated.

It was an interesting time that changed coinage collection very quickly.

I just joined cointalk to see what is being said today about what happened in 1964-66.

I hope this helps answers questions raised several years ago.

 

But the test work was not done using regular production dies were they? Typically since 1942 the Mint has used either "nonsence" dies or dies with a specific design but not a normal coinage design for thier test pieces.

 

The test piece work was none with dies made from a master engraving done by Gilroy Roberts; then the chief engraver of the US Mint. INCO paid him to make this engraving to match the configuration of the Kennedy half dollar. The design by Roberts was therefore what one would say is a normal coinage design. We were not a production operation; we were a laboratory development operation that made coinage test pieces to exact production coin sizes and weights to use in typical coin testing devices made by National Rejector and Coin Acceptor. These were the two coin testing devices that were in almost 100% of the vending machines.

 

You say it matched the configuration, but it wasn't an exact copy of the Kennedy half correct?

 

No it was not the JFK coin it was a coin made to the same coinage engraving specs with a bust of Paul D Merica on face and a depiction of the INCO lab on the tail side.

 

A picture is worth 1000 words

 

Are you suggesting I make a photo of the test pieces from 45 years ago?

With regard to the inserted message regarding a piece that was discussed in 2006 I did comment on that piece, earlier.

 

or use of the cap key make this thread a bit hard to help with.

My former English teacher concurs. I actually laughed out loud when I read this....lol

 

Though this thread is two years old, I will still fix wvrick's post so no one complains any longer.

 

No, he was suggesting that the person who started the thread three years ago post a picture of his coin. Something which is very unlikely to happen.

 

I understand. Thanks for clarification.

 

My dad worked at Nation Rejectors in the early 60s. I have two coins that are marked with Paul D. Merica with his profile on front and a picture of the laboratory on the reverse. I have no doubt that these are real since I also have many slugs that he used for testing vending machinery. I wonder if they are of any value.

 

Bump, because I have no idea

 

I believe they are of value. The history of those test pieces I described earlier in this thread. I was the research engineer that developed the copper cored cupro nickel that is used since 1964 by the US Mint to make dimes, quarters and half dollars.

 

Combined withthe history of how they came about, YES they have value, just as the Martha Washington test pieces that were made outside the mint have value.

 

My Mom worked for INCO in Bayonne, Sterling Forest & Saddlebrook NJ. I want to find out the value of the paul d merica coins