Not Silver Wartime Nickels but Copper/Nickel

Maybe the only way for you to find the answer — either up or down — is to invest some money and send them to a third-party grader. You’ll have to decide whether to spend the money.

 

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And this is why beginners should stay away from youtube...

 

Sounds like a good research project for a new collector. You should start by checking the sold listings of major auction houses such as Heritage, Stack's Bowers, etc. I would guess that if they sold something like this, at least one of the lot description would provide an estimated number of pieces in existence. Don't forget to check 1946, 1946-D and 1946-S. You can look up the number of 1946-PDS nickels minted in your copy of the Redbook (don't have one? Buy one right away "The Handbook of United States Coins". Best $10-15 you'll ever spend on the hobby). Do some basic math to figure out the percentage of wrong planchet errors made. The probability of finding one in change requires too many assumptions to get an accurate answer (how many nickels are in circulation at any given time, and how many of those are 1946 etc, etc, etc)

Let us know what you find

EDIT: Sorry, I confused this with another post (wrote it before the first cup of coffee ). Ignore the stuff about 1946 nickels. You need to determine how many 1943 standard composition off planchet errors have been certified.

 

Yes sir, I had researched that already.

http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Coin/Detail/4018/40

 

They are silver.
Condor wrote what I was thinking.
The alloy for the silver war nicks is not ideal for the "ring test" which is flawed from the beginning, depending on you to know what is silver and what is not by dropping and damaging a coin and listening to the ring.
When you consider the toning, oxidation and environmental damage that your coins show, why would you expect them to make a pure silver ring, in coins that are 35% silver? Because other silver nickels make a better tone? That's not science.

 

Could I possibly have been minted on steel cent planchets?

 

Could they have possibly been minted on steel Cent planchets? Sorry, my talk-to-text very rarely gets it right, LOL.

 

If the steel cent planchets were already cut, your nickels would be the size of pennies not have nickel rims, and weigh 2.7 grams.
Sure it's possible that a sheet of uncut steel cents got mixed in with the silver alloy sheets for the nickels. But think about it. You probably wouldn't have 2 coins that were different years. The nickels would be thinner and lighter. These 2 coins you have look like normal circulated silver war nickels.
The silver war nickels after 70+ years in circulation have a variety of patinas, looks and even sounds when dropped. These aren't error coins. Error coins are extremely rare, and even rarer to find in circulation, and rarer still to find them in circulation after 75 years.
I'm old, I've been though millions of coins and besides MAD's (common) I have found 2 errors. A 2004 nickel which had just come out, and some of the letters are completely missing while others are fully struck (struck through grease or debris). And the other an off center dime which at first I just thought was an MAD until I realized the reverse was also off. Neither one of these is going to make me rich. But they are cool.
The errors you are talking about are a once in a lifetime find, collectively for a million people searching their entire lives. A million people searching their entire lives, and 1 coin like this "might" turn up.

 

The color sure looks like toned silver to me!

 

Agreed - 90% silver coins have a distinctive 'ping' when tapped, but 35% nickels and 40% halves don't have much of a pleasant tone at all.

 

I try to avoid "pinging" any coin, until they get IP addresses, that is.

 

Misspelling of 'existence' in the title immediately marks this video and its creator as iffy - the next ten minutes don't inspire a great deal of confidence either

 

I myself like ANY video whose "libretto" begins with "Heyyyy,"

 

Speaking of 'heyyy' >

 

Sorry to hear of your accident - the ONLY reason to be using talk-to-text.

 

Fred is one of the top coin experts in the country. Also, YouTube is not your friend, most people that post videos don't have the first clue about coins.

 

In the blue cornahhhh, we have some moron who can't spell and starts his videos with "Heyyyy,".

In the red cornahhhhh, we have the number one expert in the entire United States of America on error coins.

Now whom shall I believe? I'm so torn. It could be the guy telling me what I want to believe rather than what is.

 

@Noel Field

Seriously, Noel. Stay off those YouTube videos about coin collecting. They often are comically wrong. The disservice to the public is they make it seem a $2 million coin is only a couple of pockets full of change away.

We see how it gets to be extremely frustrating for a lot of new folks.

 

I haven't been able to find any weight for these coins, but I was reading last night where the US Mint 1943 and 1944 where minting coins for Belgium. They were minting the 2 Francs coins, in Philadelphia, using leftover planchet for the 1943 steel pennies. I also read that a 1943 Belgium used brass and a 1944, they used steel. I wonder if some of these planchet could have gotten in the mix of planchet used in minting the silver war nickels? Anyone know what a Belgium 2 Francs coin weighs?