While going over a bank roll of pennies today, I found a nickel plated 1956-D penny. It looks like it was in fairly decent shape when it was plated, so I assume it was done quite a while ago. Any idea why someone would have done this? Was there a reason, or was it just a "because he could" thing? Or a high school experiment? Or... ??? I've never seen one before. The closest thing to it (and "closest" isn't even close) was a cent with some kind of white metal rim surrounding the edge, maybe silver or aluminum (I don't have any acid to test for silver and didn't want to use lye to see if it was aluminum, and it was "just a penny" so I didn't really give it much more thought, figured it was probably part of some kind of locket/charm/necklace/whatever). Maybe someone plated this one for a similar reason? (Some kind of cheap homemade (or factory made?) jewelry?) I am not deeply personally invested in finding out the reason, just mildly curious since it's such an oddity (at least for the coins I've searched.) FWIW (mainly to obviate the need for any speculation or questions regarding its composition), it's definitely nickel -- not mercury or silver, like the ones I made when I was a kid (mercury for the mercury ones, spent photographic fixer for the silver plated pennies). It's not zinc, either - it's magnetic, but not nearly so much as the pure nickel Canadian coins, it's not solid (besides the weakly magnetic effect, it's weak around the edge, and rubbed/flaked off in that area, exposing the bronze coin).
We have quite a few threads here on CoinTalk concerning plated Cents. Some people actually think they have found silver cents or steel cents in another year. Most likely answer is Classroom science experiment. Here is a thread from yesterday https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1968-no-mint-mark-lincoln-cent-gold-colored.337316/#post-3471566
A lot of cents and other coins got plated with silver-colored metal for use in charm bracelets in the 1950s, but those usually will have some trace of a loop that was attached. Of course there are numerous other explanations.
School science experiments, jewelry use and free time with a warped mind are but a few explanations for plating coins.
