Failed Attempt At Making A Texas Cent

Well, your method? I'de like to see if it really work/happens. I've see old chrome peel off of car bumpers but them days are long gone

Indeed I did - a few post upwards



BuTT, (pun intended) the real "Yokozuna" could not have done the "squish" - He'd be doing the "Squash"

I just notice that the coin I currently use as my avatar is kind of like a mint made "Texas Cent." It doesn't have any split or missing plating as a result of a large broad strike. I was surprised that the plating was intact on this coin. Maybe some copper plating just has higher tinsile strength that others.







Edit: Spelling. (English is hard!)

At the time I was slinging a "Mini Sledge" with my left hand - Now I know why I can't be happy or go bowling tonight - thanks for pointing that out!

I suspect the issue is adhesion related, but I would not be surprised if copper plating thickness plays a role. Or the purity of the copper itself, if its malleability is affected.

I don't know a lot about the details of plating copper over zinc (a barrel plating method, specifically), but in the world of metal plating, there are some combinations which are known to have weak adhesion or be sensitive to the process conditions. A lot of times, the problem is actually in the preceding step where the substrate is prepped for the next coating.

While one can plate metals as part of a high school experiment, plating on a large scale and keeping tight quality control is not trivial at all. When most of us consider errors on coins, we are thinking of mechanical abnormalities or occasionally alloy/heat treatment abnormalities. I bet the plating line has problems, too, and those may not be as immediately obvious for QC.

Maybe different years are affected more? The processing of the planchets had to change over time, otherwise, those blasted blisters would be a bigger problem on the later crops of zincolns.

To put if another way, Rothery, your experiment may have failed due to you destroying an excellently plated cent!

Dedicated error collectors waste a lot of time and money, altering coins of minimal value, because it's important to understand all the different things that could be done with a coin. We do this to learn and educate other collectors so they won't spend good money chasing bad coins.