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Message:: [QUOTE="benveniste, post: 1009675, member: 25547"]Was there enough copper? Perhaps. But the fears of running out of copper were far from groundless. Demand for copper increased greatly for materiel production and at the same time the supply lines from Chile and the Belgian Congo were seen as vulnerable to disruption. The decision to make steel cents was more out of an expectation of a shortage rather than an actual shortage. In late 1942, the concern about copper shortages was so great that the Manhattan Project "borrowed" 14,700 tons of silver from the Treasury and used it to make wire for electromagnets. There's little doubt that General Groves could have gotten the copper instead, but that would mean answering awkward questions about a top-secret project. BTW, the link is partially incorrect.  Copper was not shipped back from the battlefields to make the "so-called" shell case cents.  Most of it didn't come from shells at all, and that which did was from domestic shells -- either from rounds which were never shipped out or expended in practice.[/QUOTE]