1996 German Dies Full Nickel Planchet Error

Very nice!

to the Community!

That's a very cool toonie error!

The coin on the photos seems to be a "Specimen" that was issued in a blue folder as well as in various sets with stamps and banknotes.
It has distinct matte fields, frosted crown on the obverse and ultra-frosted bear on reverse. The rims are well defined and the ring around the core is wide.
The coin was issued in large quantities (100000+) and many of those re-entered circulation.
The mint has never called it "specimen" officially, though. It was "Uncirculated".
Also, the quality of the coin was not consisted and some (late stage dies?) have less frosting and only slightly matte fields.
The distinct feature is the wide ring around the core.

I'd guess that the un-punched planchet was used during the specimen batch manufacturing.
It is still a mistery how did it avoid being struck through the core piece, because the assembly of canadian planchet business strike coins was/is going in the strike chamber.
Another guess: the mint used different type of presses for Proof coins - solid planchets for silver and pre-assembled planchets for Nickel Proof.
Maybe they used pre-assembled planchets for the specimen coins as well, which would make this type of error more probable because an un-punched blank would easily skip the assembly step.

A side note: for some reason german planchet toonies have a very narrow, almost non existent inner core ring on the obverse.
Though, my sample pool is not big enough to make a conclusion.

@DBM I used "German dies" in my title to refer to the strike because what gives "German planchets" their distinct look is their dies rather than their planchets so it's a personal peeve of mine to call them that lol.

And @Mice45 I don't believe it's a specimen because specimens of this era have a more frosted field paired with mirror like devices rather than cameo evident by the polar bear but I think you are right with the pre assembled planchets.

Look up PCGS # 57234869 nickel 7.5 gram on a foreign planchet, there is no known 7.5 gram foreign planchet pure nickel that I know of, but the RCM could have produced a private token or medal at this time. This coin is mine and have seen around 4 or 5 examples of the 1996 type

Reason you want to XRF the insert part of this coin is the coin could be plated, Good luck it cost about 150 bucks for PCGS to grade a coin

@john100 plating would disturb the luster so unless the mint plated the planchet and then struck it, it wouldn't be plated