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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;robp, post: 25277990, member: 96746&quot;]It&#039;s possible, but equally unlikely, as they will have tried many different elemental compositions. </p><p><br /></p><p>As Graham said when I queried the above, &#039;Forget the dies and concentrate on the metal mix&#039;. They obviously test each variation in metal mix for suitability or quality of strike. So it is possible, even likely, that your selection of off-metal strikes from the 1960s dies etc were all made for this purpose rather than ascribing them to &#039;Mint fun&#039;. The first thing he said was the Half-Crown Sample above was struck in the 1980s rather than being a prospective halfcrown. </p><p><br /></p><p>What is needed is a proper analysis of each piece rather than pointing a gun at it and saying it&#039;s iron or nickel or whatever just because that is the major peak. We all know that slight variations in alloy can have a significant effect on the suitability of the material for any specific purpose.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the record, the above trial piece gave Chromium 12.31%, Manganese 0.78% and Iron 86.91%. But this was qualitative data only, as I wasn&#039;t going to spend 10K on a set of metal standards for something valued in the hundreds, so only an approximation. Qualitative analysis, while useful, is only half the story because the material characteristics depend on the extras.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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