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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 427584, member: 68&quot;]The government primarily was lokking for a material that wouldn&#039;t attract much attention so it had to look a lot like silver.&nbsp; The cu/ ni clad cu composition was first mentioned by a representative of the vending industry which said this sort of material would be the most difficult to distinguish from silver so was the biggest threat to the industry.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The mint started playing around with all sorts of sandwich metals looking for one which would appear to be silver and work with the silver already circulating while being cost effective.&nbsp; The 25% Ni 75% Cu cladded pure copper is rather expensive but was the cheapest which did the job. In those early day they couldn&#039;t bond these metals with pressure from rollers because there was no steel strong enough.&nbsp; To bond them they had to have all four surfaces perfectly clean and then they were forced together in a hydraulic press and dynamite was detonated above them.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>By 1968 some of the clad strip could be made by rollers and it was only a little later that it was all made this way.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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