2004 nickel with stripes?? what is it??

I'm with Conder on this one, they look like some kind of metal mixture stretch where each metal toned differently.

They are not die polish lines. Of course there is no way to tell for sure without sending it to an expert like Fred Wienberg.

 

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Thanks yall! I'll try send some pictures off and see what they say. I would like to get this checked out and certified along with my strange 1981 double struck lincoln penny so they are official. I'll let you know what I find out!

 

Try sending some pictures to Fred Weinburg Fred@fredwienburg.com see what he has to say.

 

Reminds me of the incomplete alloy mix that leads to a "woody" cent. Thinking perhaps the darker lines are the copper and the lighter just the nickel.

 

That would be one serious quality control problem by the metal alloy manufacturer. Alloys are created by mixing metals in either large arc furnaces or smaller induction furnaces. Heat sheets are prepared by the metallurgists and followed by the furnace operator. To achieve an improper mixing of alloys that badly, you would have to almost disregard the heat sheet entirely. In the plant that I worked in, every heat produced had a sample taken which was sent to the lab for quality control. If the sample did not meet the requirements, the entire heat was turned into remelt.

Once the metal is cast it has to undergo an extrusion process to turn it into a sheet before the blank planchets can be stamped out. My guess is that this planchet error occurred during the extrusion process but is not related to improper alloy mixture. It almost appears as if the roller marks have been etched into the surface of the coin. I don't know how that would have happened. Maybe a whole batch of planchets were improperly washed and somehow this one slipped by.

 

OHHH!!! YOU GOT SERVED!!! :goofer: Just kidding!! I have sent an email to Fred Wienberg and hope he replies as I would love to get to the bottom of this. Not that I have ever worked in a metal plant, although I have watched a lot of DiscoveryHD - but it is hard to think that it happened during that portion. Unless there just happened to be a spot on one of those huge rolls. Seems more likely that it would have happened once the blank planchet had been struck.

I definitely am hoping that this is a one-off bazillion dollar retirement error coin but I'm not gonna hold my breath... well not for to long anyway:kewl:
THANKS!
J

 

The only coins that I can recall that have such pronounced striations that encompass both the devices and the fields are the $4 gold Stellas. Read the description on this Stella in Heritage's auction archives. Pretty cool how the just used rollers to thin the sheet to obtain the desired weight keeping the diameter the same as the half eagle.

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=450&Lot_No=1694#photo

In the enlarged photo, you can see the striations in both the fields and devices.

 

Thanks Lehigh, those definitely look like the same marks my coin has, just not quite as pronounced. So I assume that "striations" would be the correct term for the stripes on the coin?

That Stella is a very cool coin! That is the first I have heard of it as I am still a coin noobie
Thanks!!
J

 

I had found this one a few months back and posted it in the roll searchers thread. Appears to be the same type but it didn't generate much excitement in my first post

 

Greetings Scrumhalf - It definitely looks the same as my coin! What year and mintmark is yours? I assume your coin also has the same marks on the revrse side as well?

 

Here are some better pictures of mine. The spots on the reverse are toning that is clearer in hand

 

Good evening everyone,
Mr. Weinberg responded to my email and pictures, here is what he had to say regarding this nickel:

"The 2004 Nickel looks like it's either toned, or cleaned or ?. It doesn't look like a
damaged planchet, or something that occured at the mint, but I'm not sure 100%
That coin could be listed on ebay too - it will bring whatever the interested bidders
think it's worth. I don't believe,even if it were a streaked planchet, that it's worth much."

Sooo looks like i'll be canceling my early retirement plans for now Who knows I need to sell some stuff anyway so I can buy more stuff, i may just throw it out there and see what it fetches.
THANKS!
J

 

Keep looking for the answer before you try to sell. Especially if its not worth that much... what are you going to be out by holding it a bit longer to know what you have. Someone who may know definitely what this is, won't likely tell you once it's listed. Not saying it's worth anything except knowing that you know before you let go. Let us know when you do or how well your sale goes.

 

Sooo looks like i'll be canceling my early retirement plans for now Who knows I need to sell some stuff anyway so I can buy more stuff, i may just throw it out there and see what it fetches.


I'll give ya a nickel for it...... but I would not let it go until you take it to the next step...

 

Pretty nice coin. Like it was stated earlier about the mixed alloys, may be it was at the bottom of a sheet(or top) that wasn't properly mixed with the other elements. Who knows, may be the mint had problems with some bad sheets, and then cut the bad off, leaving a small amount on the end after the cut for the next process, leaving the chance that this would happen. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

 

and possibly they punched a whole roll of nickels with these striations.
EDIT- by roll, I mean roll of metal for planchets.

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

There are traces of the pattern on the rims. You have to remember the rims are also the highest part of the coin and are used to help protect the coin from wear by providing the wear surface. As a coin circulated the very highest points of the design AND THE RIM show the first wear. So simple wear could have removed most of the pattern from the surface of the rim.

As to the melting of the alloy, the melt can be good, but from my understanding if the ingot cools too slowly you can start getting separation of the metals.

And the sheet is created by rolling (usually cold rolling) the ingot not extrusion.

 

You are right, extrusion involves a die. However, I have never heard of alloys separating during an air cool process. I should qualify that my metallurgical background is confined to engineering materials like aluminum based alloys and steel alloys. We never studied copper nickel.

I still think the striations are created mechanically and are not a result of improper mixing. If this coin was a from the 1800's, it would be more believable. Modern metals refining processes and quality control would make that very improbable.

 

I wonder what the metal composition of the dies is. I'd imagine they're something hard, like case-hardened steel or something. Could they have imparted this due to a manufacturing or maintenance defect of some kind?