1964 Kennedy Half Clad?

I'm not sure I remember why I responded at all now.

Obviously "copper nickel clad" is in no way ambiguous.

I suppose it's because I still hear people calling silver clad "clad" that I brought it up at all. It can be confusing for newbies.

I see... ...makes sense.

From my perspective I'm almost always referring to cu/ ni clad since most modern quarter proofs and all of the uncs are either 90% or cu/ ni clad.

If I were primarily an Ike collector I'd probably say cu/ ni clad as well.

Just for the heck of it, I Googled it: Full Definition of clad

1
: being covered or clothed <ivy-clad buildings>

2
of a coin : consisting of outer layers of one metal bonded to a core of a different metal

I vaguely recall seeing the rolling process of the sheets at the Philadelphia mint when I was very young. As I recall, it was for copper pennies. Ingots about 10" thick rolled into sheets the thickness of a penny. Later in life, I worked as a contractor at a few copper plants and it was a similar process, although for different end uses. I don't have any idea where the coils are made today. Some info can be had here https://www.treasury.gov/about/educ...cturing.aspx

As previously stated, clad coins are made of specifically "sandwiched" metal sheets. The stock is actually a metal coil from which blanks are punched.

Generally, for US Silver Clad coins the inner core was/is copper with the outer material being silver. This holds the illusion that the coin has the intrinsic value of a more pure silver 90% homogenized coin since the "jacket" gives the illusion that the coin is as silver as the older 90% US silver coins. When the coin is "struck" the relatively soft silver tends to draw to cover the edge of the coin which completes the illusion.

Copper/Nickel coins furthered the debasement of intrinsic value by substituting nickel cladding which has the illusion of being silver. However, Nickel is much harder than silver and does not draw as easily over the sides and the Nickel content is only 8.33% so the copper core is more visible on the edge of the coin.

The process of making "clad" stock is a bit more complicated than making a homogenous metal alloy sheet because the bright metals have to be on the outsides of the metal sheet when it is made. Silver was bonded to copper sheets using a coating/annealing process as nickel is bonded to copper sheets now for CU/Ni stock. The processes were/are regulated to maintain 40% silver cladding on Silver clad stock and 8.33 nickel cladding on CU/Ni stock. The outlier is the Nickel which is 25% Nickel and balance copper, homogenized stock.

A different process is used for copper "plated" zinc coins - a further debasement of intrinsic value.

The exotic composition of the modern "gold" dollars is, generally, a coating process as previously discussed in this thread.

Modern cu/ ni strip is made by rolling the copper strip between two rollers and the cu/ ni jacketing at high pressure. Initially back in '65 they were made in sheets that were "explosion bonded". The three sheets were forced together with hydrualic presses and then dynamite was exploded above them to complete the bonding process. The old coins sometimes delaminated even after the strike.

It's in "blanking" that the edges are smeared over. Blanking is cutting out discs (type 1 planchets) using round dies or shears to punch them right out of the strip.

That is why he is the Clad King.

I had not thought about this in a long time, but I once assumed that cladding was used to allow easy differentiate from silver (looking at the edge). I am now wondering why again.

Thanks for the finite corrections jbuck and cladking. Pardon my error for taking significant shortcuts in explanation and forgetting the difference between silver clad and CU Ni Clad core composition as well as the difference between the effect of blank punching and striking.

Seems like I am forgetting a lot lately.

I also agree with n9jig but I have to admit that I did try a Sunoco Car coin in a vending machine circa 1968 once when I was a child just to see if it would work. I was certain it would reject it. I don't remember what type of machine it was but it didn't seem to have an issue with accepting it. I recall I was so scared of being hunted down by the FBI (yes, we kids did have that level of confidence that any bad action had major significant consequences back then - or at least we honorable ones did) that I hit the coin return and never tried it again so I am not sure if it would have worked or not. I only know that it did not immediately reject it like it would a steel slug.

I can only presume that the debasement of quarters and dimes in 1965 with respect to metal composition below that of a nickel was to make the production of change significantly less expensive.

So... Please correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe the vending machines in 1965 were sophisticated enough to determine the electrical difference between silver, nickel, or copper or the percentages of each beyond, possibly, weight through levers or steel through magnets which is what I recall learning as being the major slug rejecter sometime later in life when learning how things worked.

Here is an example of a silver clad 1967 Kennedy half I got at Walgreens today. As I was checking out I saw it and a few golden dollars in the drawer and asked for it. It looks like it was fairly recently pulled from a collection and spent, perhaps from an SMS. The edges are particularly sharp as are the mills.

I could not get a clean picture of the milled edge but one can see the layer's differences upon close examination. Without magnification it looks pretty much uniform but edge marks can be seen if you look real close.

I will post another picture once it comes out of the rock polisher.