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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bill in Burl, post: 985889, member: 23692&quot;]It looks to me like any other &#039;59 that has come into chemical contact with any number of possible cleaning agents.&nbsp; As I have put in other posts, the only way to tell for sure (and what the &quot;experts&quot; will do) is to take it out side or at a window into natural light .... no artificial light.&nbsp; Gently scratch the edge with a diamond or piece of glass (no metal).&nbsp; Then look at the color of the base metal that lies under the surface tone.&nbsp; Even bronze in bare metal looks a little yellow.&nbsp; There are no specific Obv or Reverse markers that will tell you a brass one because the current examples don&#039;t show similarities.&nbsp; It is my opinion and that of other Vicky experts that there really were no real &quot;brass cents&quot; made on purpose..... they were the result of alloy mixing errors in the making of the planchets.&nbsp; The specific gravities and the small percentages of zinc and tin are so close, it takes very little to cross the threshhold from bronze to brass.&nbsp; Too long in the mixing pot, impurities in the core metal, or the first pour from the mixing pot all could result in &quot;brass&quot; resulting rather than bronze.&nbsp; This was the late 1850&#039;s and the Royal Mint had worked only with copper before.&nbsp; The planchets for the 1/3 thinner (but same dia as the Brit halfpenny) Canada large cents were special order because all previous Brit coinage was just copper..... and it was a massive 10 million piece order.&nbsp; I&#039;ve looked at 10&#039;s of thousands of Vicky large cents and I don&#039;t think that yours is brass.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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