1900 Liberty Nickel Struck On Wrong Planchet

Hi Conder....I want you to know that of the people from "The other place", you are one of 2 or 3 for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. You have never demeaned me in any way, which is a whole lot more than I can say about a lot of the membership there.

Do me a favor.....and have the grand wizard (GDwhatever) take a look at this thread if you will (link below). I asked that I be banned from that forum. Initially, the date that the account was to be reinstated was "never"....but has since changed to 90 days. I have no intention of ever going back to that forum. There are far too many mean spirited and snobbish folks there. Note that I do not include you in that "lot". That's not been your hallmark. I know there are good people there, and probably some stinkers here...but I like it here better.

https://goccf.com/t/57070

Chancellor Sutler

Whoa....I haven't had to mess with that stuff since 9th grade "Introductory Physical Science"...and let's just say that was a loooong time ago. so that'll take some doing for me. I don't have the necessary measuring vessels...that I do know.

Chancellor Sutler

I removed the name of the other place from my previous post, and will refrain from mentioning it in the future. There's a loose end that I can do nothing about though, because I can contact nobody through that site. Anyway, I promise not to do that again.

I have thought over and over about sending this nickel to Mike Ellis at Dominion, and will likely end up doing that after the holidays. It would be nice to have it in a Dominion "signature" slab...and maybe I can get Mike to do the leg work for me

Chancellor Sutler

I'll just chime in and say that's a very interesting nickel!
As a thought on a specific gravity test--since nickel and copper are very close (8.90-8.94), determining a specific alloy will be tough. I hope you get this attributed--good luck!

The term 'experts' is quite the misnomer when referring to coinage. A person can cherrypick like a god, and identify all varieties of all denominations, but this can be the result of memorization for profit or limited interest, but is no indication that this same person has the faintest idea of how coins are created.

I am not entirely sold on the notion that such a coin was produced using a planchet intended for exotic foreign coinage.

A coin of this design, with this much wear should weigh 4.8 or 4.9 grams (ideally), but as with other production issues, exact Weight Tolerances of 'non dollar' sized coins were not of paramount importance, and I have little doubt that many over and under weight coins slipped into circulation. The weight disparity on this particular coin 'does' seem to be quite extreme however.

These five cent planchets were not individually hand inspected as were dollar planchets, nor were they weighed on Seyss weighing machines.

Upsetting was mentioned, but should not be an issue as no upsetting was accomplished on this five cent piece. The purpose of the upsetting machine was to thicken the edges of the planchets so that coins with milling or dentils (denticles) would strike up that design (as the combined milling/rim void required a large amount of metal flow) for proper design effect. Milling and the rim are actually one and the same device. Upsetting machines were called 'milling machines' in their earlier days of use because that was their main purpose; to provide extra metal on the planchet where it was needed most (in the milling). Planchets intended for coins without milling or dentils, received no trip to the upsetting machine. I'm drifting off course of the original issue.

I rather think that this coin's affliction 'could' be a simple result of rolling or other draw bench errors. A thin strip resulting in a thin planchet, coupled with an off center strike. I realize that this 'may be' stretching a possibility just a bit, but still within reasonable limitations from a manufacturing standpoint, if the specific gravity test proves to be inconclusive.

Yes, you are obviously correct. I was wrong in this belief. I do not know where I had read this or if maybe I just misinterpreted something.

We aren't saying that a US coin on a foreign planchet can't happen. The problem is finding a likely candidate for the source of the planchet. For example that 1905 V nickel. The Mint WAS striking foreign coins in Philadellphia in 1905, and a possible candidate would be a planchet for the Panama 5 Centisimo. 90% silver 2.5 grams, 18 mm diameter. Weigh is about right, color is right, diameter is a bit small but maybe doable. There are two other possibilities as well but I think the Panama piece is the most likely. The poblem with the originally posted coin is that there just aren't any possible candidates for the planchet source, unless the firm that was supplying some of the cent and nickel planchets at the time was also producing planchets for some other country and one slipped into a US Mint shipment by accident. But without knowing what countries they had contracts with where would you start looking? Also the firm was producing tokens for private businesses, so it could be struck on a token planchet and not a planchet for a foreign country.