Pennies from recycled shell casings?

Also domestic gun ranges.
However, it is debatable if these were ever actually made into coins.
I have noticed shell case cents to have a different patina/ toning.
But the amount of weight nec. to make billions of cents just was not there
from spent shell casings.
I realize this is necro thread, but it is still a valid topic.
And there are a couple more recent threads about this same subject.

 

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Here is my ash tray from a 105mm Howitzer shell casing with a so cal bullet in the center.

 

They added just a small amount of shellcases to a normal melt, thus it was largely symbolic.

 

Earlier in the thread, from 6+ years ago, one of the mods states that NO cents
were ever made from spent shell casings. (Symbolic or otherwise.)

 

I would bet, Roger Burdette could add to this thread.

One of my old friends was on a few different ships in WW2. He worked in what he called the machine shop. He said he never saw shell casings being saved. They all went overboard.
At the end of the war they dumped anything on the ship that was no longer needed.

 

The story I read just said domestic gun ranges and not actual WW2 stuff.
But then, I read it may just be an urban myth.

 

Why am i just learning the truth now. Always heard that this did happen.

 

Because it is not the truth? It did happen...

 

Not to be too nitpicky, however I see lots of misconceptions in most of the postings above. Cartridge casings are made of brass, which is an alloy mainly composed of copper and zinc. I forget the exact name for it, though I seem to recall the term "#4 cartridge brass" when I sold 5 gallon buckets of it at the junk yard a few years ago. The later post about the 16" guns on the battle wagons not having casings is correct. And as for recycling cartridge casings for use at the mint, there were lots of rounds fired stateside in training, and the trainees were always required to police up and turn in their brass. At least that's how it was when I went through basic and advanced infantry training in the 60's. That brass could have easily have been recycled for use at the mints.

I have noticed some 1944 Lincoln cents that look a lot more yellow than earlier and later dates, so I can readily believe that their metal content was a bit different.

 

There is another thread on this same subject in which he has in a way. In it I quote from Roger's book on the experimental cents and nickels of WWII where he give information about the shells, the source, how many railroad car loads were delivered to the mint daily. Discussion about the problems of the possibility of live rounds etc, and he lists the locations in the national archives where the source documents are to be found. So at least some of the metal for coinage came from shell cases. It would be interesting to see more of the documents though and the figures he provided for the shell casings would only account for a fraction of the cent coinage.

 

This thread has a lot of information.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/984968/wwii-and-spent-shell-casing-pennies

 

Not quite. One of the methods used to separate U235 that used used in the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima from natural uranium (mostly U238) was electromagnetic separation. This technique used large machines called Calutrons (invented by Ernest Lawrence and named after the University of California), which were essentially gigantic mass spectrometers that used huge electromagnets. This was done on an industrial scale at Oakridge in Tennessee and each Calutron needed many tons of copper for the magnet windings. Since copper was in short supply during the war, the Treasury was approached for a loan of silver to make these windings (silver is more conductive than copper, so it's an ideal substitute).

When the representative of the Manhattan Project made the request of 6000 tons of silver to an undersecretary of the Treasury, he reportedly replied (paraphrased) "Sir! We do not measure silver in tons; our measure is the Troy ounce!". In all, 430 million Troy ounces of silver were used for this purpose during the war and it was returned to the treasury afterwards (electromagnetic separation of U235 was replaced by gaseous diffusion separation after the war).

 

Wow. That was a mouth full

 

it's 44-46

 

Shellcases were apparently alloyed-in to Cents minted at San Francisco until 1949. I have quite a few examples of 49-S Cents with "shellcase" toning. I've never seen a 50-S or later Cent that showed this evidence. I've also seen few if any Cents of any date from D or P mints with shellcase toning, so I would conclude that most or all of the use of shellcases was at San Francisco.

 

They never used spent shell casings. The collection of, (massive amounts) shipping, melting down, makes it more than highly unlikely.
Once these casings were melted down and the copper purified, the composition of the cents would be exactly the same. There's no shell case toning. That's an illusion.

 

Do you have any evidence to prove this unfounded assertion? There is plenty of evidence supporting the use of shell cases, so unless you have some evidence of a government conspiracy (certainly possible) I don't think you are correct.

 

In 1944 and 1945 the total for the 2 years of shell case cents is not at a mintage of 3 billion 642 million. Almost 400 million ounces. 25 million pounds.
That's a lot of spent shell casings. And you claim they went to all this trouble in San Francisco in 1949 and 1950 when copper was cheap, plentiful and already supplied to the mints.
There's no conspiracy. Why don't you write an e mail to myth busters and see if it was feasible. I have already explained it is not.
Do you know how many months or years, and man power would be required to collect over 25 million pounds of spent shell casings, (that amount was not even available) transported and melted down and purified into copper? It's not logical or possible or cost effective.

 

You've made the incorrect assumption that the Cents were made completely of shellcasings. In reality, only a small amount of casings were added to the mix. It was more of a "symbolic" act than a practical one, but the casings contaminated the mix such that the resulting alloy undeniably contained spent shellcasings. The telltale elements were part of the spent primers, and it is these elements that give the shellcase coins their distinctive toning signature.

Note also that I did claim 49-S had this distinctive toning, but not 50-S. It's unclear why the alloy was continued as long as 1949, and indeed I've never seen any 47-S or 48-S shellcase-toned Cents, so perhaps there were just a few leftover planchets which ended up being minted when they cleared out some stock?

 

Can you show your 49s