I have a 1974 half dollar that appears to have something in between the Clad layers. Is this possible.
I took pictures last night and was attempting to post them but was having connection problems I will do my best to post pictures tonight in a pier or it actually is about probably the size of a pea is the way it looks it bulges out both sides
I have a couple like that and have showed it to a few dealers. There are 2 different opinions: First I was told the coin was in a fire and the bubble/lump was caused by heat. Secondly the coin during minting had a piece of debris trapped in between layers. My example does not have a corresponding indent on the other side so it isn't a punch mark or bullet damage. If it is a trapped piece of junk then that is a mint error. Not much of a premium associated. edit: It isn't so much a strike error it is a planchet defect that happened before striking.
From the description it definitely sounds like a heat related gas bulge. If something was actually trapped between the copper and the clad layer it would not form a bulge on the coin because one it would be crushed by the rollers that rolled out the strip, and two it would be crushed by the striking of the dies. If it was something strong enough to NOT be crushed by the rollers it also would not pass through them and would tear a hole in the strip. If by some miracle you could have something "uncrushable" in the planchet when it was struck the object would keep the dies from coming together and the rest of the coin would not be struck. (image from the dies just on the lump and the rest of the coin would still be a "blank planchet".
"A diamond perhaps caught between the clad layers", he whispers. Shhhh. All kidding aside, no doubt gas bubbles from some unknown source.
A diamond is easily crushable. Diamonds may be hard but they are brittle. Run over it with the rollers or hit it with the dies and you've got diamond dust.
Fire might be the more correct answer since it is physically impossible for something to get "trapped between the layer" during the minting process. The material used for CnClad coins is produced by a contracted company which ships the stock to the US Mints in huge rolls. Blanks are then gang punched out of that stock then fed through an upsetting mill to give the blank a raised edge. At that point, the blanks are cleaned, annealed and then fed into the coining press (i.e. the minting process).
Not totally impossible! This is a Sacagawea Blank with a burnishing ball trapped under the clad layer I want to share this webpage with you - http://minterrornews.com/discoveries-11-6-10-new_error_type.html
As you can see @paddyman98, the coin you've quoted has not been "minted". It has been prepared for minting but not actually minted. In other words, it's a blank Type 2 Planchet.
