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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 165683, member: 66&quot;]The mint needed an inexpensive metal that was readily available and cheaper than copper.&nbsp; There aren&#039;t too many choices.&nbsp; Steel, Zinc, Tin, or Aluminum or copperalloyed with one of them.</p><p><br /></p><p>A copper alloy would only briefly delay yet another change.&nbsp; Tin would workbut I don&#039;t believe it&#039;s cost was that much less,&nbsp; (I&#039;m also not sure but it may not be avalable from domestic sources in large quantity.&nbsp; Aluminum was cheap, fairly corrosion resistant, but it was much lighter than the current cent and it would have been too noticable.&nbsp; They wanted the new composition to be as unnoticable as possible.&nbsp; that left zinc or steel.&nbsp; Steel tends to be even more reactive and it spalls as it corrodes.&nbsp; Not to mention that it&#039;s magnetic properties would also tend to make it noticable.&nbsp; This kind of left zinc by default.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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