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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Pickin and Grinin, post: 4016685, member: 73995&quot;]LOL It&#039;s harmless. Here is a little bit of info.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The following description is from what I believe was a 1954 press release from the American Museum of Atomic Energy:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;One of the most popular exhibits in the American Museum of Atomic Energy is a &quot;dime irradiator.&quot; To date, more than 250,000 dimes have been irradiated, encased in plastic and returned to their owners as souvenirs. The irradiator works as follows: A mixture of radioactive antimony and beryllium is enclosed in a lead container. Gamma rays from the antimony are absorbed by the beryllium atoms and a neutron is expelled by the beryllium atom in the process. </p><p><br /></p><p>These neutrons, having no electrical charge, penetrate silver atoms in the dime. Instead of remaining normal silver-109, they become radioactive silver-110. After irradiation, the dime is dropped out through a slot in the lead container and rests momentarily before a Geiger tube so that its radioactivity may be demonstrated. It is then encased in the souvenir container. Radioactive silver, with a half-life of 22 seconds, decays rapidly to cadmium-110 (In 22 seconds, half of the radioactivity in each dime is gone, in another 22 seconds half the remainder goes, and so on until all the silver-110 has become cadmium). Only an exceedingly minute fraction of the silver atoms have been made radioactive.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Taken from here.</p><p><a href="https://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/medalsmementoes/dimes.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/medalsmementoes/dimes.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/medalsmementoes/dimes.htm</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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