Stainless Steel Coins?

304SS is fairly malleable, but wouldn't provide much better protection that the current nickel and would be far more costly to produce. 316SS would be more expensive still. I would like to see some C-276 coins but I have a feeling they would scrap for way over face value. Heat treated 17-4 coins would be pre toned after production. Now that would be pretty cool.

 

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The U.S Mint uses tool steel for their dies. Google it and you'll see tungsten as one of the alloys; an alloy that is strong enough to be used in tank armor.

The die only has to be harder than the planchet. Yes, stainless steel is harder than copper or silver. That only means the dies will wear out and fail sooner. They'll still strike stainless steel coins, until they do fail. Besides, maybe someone's nephew in Brazil sold tool steel to the mint.

 

Here's a nicely toned 17-4 heat treated slug that I use as a paperweight. Maybe I should try H900 on a few coins and see how they come out?

 

Stainless steel for coins is doable, it must be, many countries have struck stainless steel coins. It is harder on the dies and one of the ways they counter that is by lowering the relief. (Note the India 1 Rupee coin on the first page, low relief, horrible strike. This is typical of a lot of the India 1, 2, and 5 rupee coins now. Just what we want, lower the relief on our coins even more.) There are many different SS alloys, some magnetic some not. The different alloys also come with different costs. You would have to do some price comparisons and tests to determine what the the best alloy would be. And you still won't be able to strike cents and maybe not five cents profitably.

 

I have a brazil 50 centavos stainless steel coin, I think dated somewhere around the 90s or 2000s. It's in pretty high relief from what I remember. I mean, it's nothing like the Italian and Indian ones. Just a thought

 

No one has suggested Adamantium yet? ;-)