1989 underweight quarter

Looks like the planchet it was made from is full of gas bubbles or something, be fun to cross section that one.

I have no idea why it's underweight unless those holes are representative of metal missing through the entire coin. All heavily circulated coins are a little underweight to start with.

Those coins weren't plated in 1989 they were made from pure nickel, their specified weight is 5.07 grams, same as all the way to 1968. There are several metal impurities and cooling problems that can cause gas bubbling in nickel.

But really, I have no idea what's going on here.

ya, sorry, it is magnetic

If it is nickel bonded steel you should see a difference in metal colour at the rim because it's a basically a nickel clad steel coin, not plated, clad - so a sandwich of metals similiar to a US quarter (except with steel, not copper alloy). Might explain those divots in the coin as rust holes from pitting?

There's no database of what they make, half the time I think they take on work at a loss just to keep people employed and don't tell us in the reports. The only website I know of with references like that is here and it's not well arranged.

http://www.coinscan.com/for/foreign.html

i looked through coinscan, thats where I came up with the fiji 10cent. I thought nickel bonded steel was an alloy rather than plated. if it was plated I would expect the low areas to be shiny and if the higher areas polished off they would oxidize, but this is in reverse. the high spots on the coin (rim, lettering etc) are more polished than the low relief areas which has the 'matt' finish.

i would think acid would erase a lot of the finer details. the jewels in the crown, hair/eye on the cariboo etc are all really crisp.

the divots do look like voids or bubbles, and the matt finish looks more like oxidation than a "finish".

with the weight being low I was thinking thin planchet but the details are all there.

bad planchet or foreign?