A friend of mine posted this to another forum. When I told him how much I liked it, he offered it at a price I couldn't pass up. Thought I would share it with you guys... Best part is my woman won't believe me that it is no longer radioactive and won't come within 5 feet of it (not a bad thing hehe)
Here's a thread with some good links embedded ... http://www.cointalk.com/threads/museum-of-atomic-energy-dime.45048/#post-1802867
a friend "Mike M" (to give credit where it's due) from another forum posted this: Oak Ridge National Laboratory was a "secret city" in World War II. When the town was opened up on March 19, 1949, the American Museum of Science and Energy began hosting visitors. One million of them received "irradiated dimes." A beryllium case was placed over small lump of antimony. The antimony gave off gamma rays that excited the beryllium which emitted neutrons that struck the dimes. The half-life was 24.6 seconds. Some of the Ag-109 atoms became Ag-110. Giving off an electron, the Ag-110 became Cadmium (Cd-110), which is stable. An other 51.82% of the silver atoms became Ag-107, the remaining 41.18 of the silver remained Ag-109. Of the remaining 5% was comprised of other isotopes, the most stable of which is Ag-108 which remains radioactive for five years, though the amount in a dime is statistically unimportant at the human level. Dimes are also made of copper. Cu-63 and Cu-65 represent almost 69.17% and almost 30.83% of the mass and are stable. When they absorb a neutron, they become zinc. The remaining fraction of a percent is Cu-67 which is radioactive for two-and-half days. Only silver dimes could be used. When the government switched to cupro-nickel, it was only a matter of time before silver dimes became scarce. The program was discontinued in 1967. Ni-63 remains radioactive for 92 years, decaying much quicker than Ni-59 which has a half-life of 80,000 years. See also http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/m...toes/dimes.htm from these sources American Museum of Atomic Energy Press Release? Radioactive Dimes. 1954. William Kolb and Paul Frame. Living With Radiation: the First Hundred Years. Third Ed. Syntec Inc. 2002. Michael Marotta. Dimes Tell Oak Ridge Story. Coin World, October 4, 1999. Roger Cloutier, personal communication.
