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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 1727781, member: 66&quot;]Vending machines may not have been sophisticated but the still wanted nickels of the same size and weight as the old ones.&nbsp; A steel nickel of the same size would have been almost 20% lighter.&nbsp; Make them the same diameter and the right weight and they would be 20% thicker.&nbsp; The war nickel alloy used the heavier silver but offset that with the low density Manganese resulting in an alloy of the same density&nbsp; as the 75%copper 25%nickel alloy.&nbsp; Also the electrical properties were close enough that they would work in the pay telephones which were beginning to use electrical property testing to check for slugs/fakes.</p><p><br /></p><p>As to the story about the mint using spent shell cases for the 1944 to 46 cents, this was true.&nbsp; In Roger Burdette&#039;s recent book on the experimental cents and five cents of WWII he references the documents in the national archive that report the number of tons of spent shell cases delivered to each of the mints each week.&nbsp; It wasn&#039;t enough to produce all the cents struck, but it was enough for a significant amount of them.&nbsp; (My copy of the book is at home or I could give you the tonnage.)&nbsp; I don&#039;t believe the shell cases came back from overseas though, just domestic training centers.&nbsp; I have heard stories firsthand though from WWII veterans who claim they were detailed to gather spent cases from combat action.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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