Posted 06/09/2022 8:23 pm
The official legal specifications of the one cent coin are: 97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper. I think it would be fair to assume that there is effectively no copper in the zinc core. Likewise, there would be no zinc in the copper plating. Therefore, all of that "2.5% copper" that's in the specifications resides in the plating and that the plating is therefore legally expected to comprise 2.5% of the coin's mass. For a Zincoln weighing exactly 2.5000 grams, this ought to theoretically render you 0.0625 grams of copper.
Given this definition is enshrined in law, and that breaches of this law would be considered as serious as if the Mint were caught deliberately adulterating a silver or gold coin, I don't think it's something the Mint is authorized to fool around with, in terms of "adding a double-thick plating for NIFC collector coins". Doubling the thickness would, logically, add an extra 0.0625 grams of copper to the coin. A 1 cent coin weighing 2.56 grams is still within the officially acceptable Weight Tolerance, of ±0.10 grams, but you've now pushed the composition all the way up to 4.87% copper, which I'm pretty sure is well outside the legal parameters for the coin. While they could get away with accidentally leaving the blanks in the plating pot for too long, explaining it as a failure in quality control, deliberately violating the law in this way just to make some special collector coins would be very dubious practice, I would think.
Finally, of course, the US Mint doesn't actually make the blanks for pennies - it outsources them from companies like Jarden Zinc, who supply them already plated and rimmed, ready to feed straight into the presses. So unless they get the supplier to make a special batch of double-thick-plated blanks, the Mint would have to use the exact same blanks as they would use for regular coins. According to the US Mint website on how they make coins, penny blanks intended for uncirculated coin sets are specially washed, polished, and examined by hand, but otherwise normal.
Given this definition is enshrined in law, and that breaches of this law would be considered as serious as if the Mint were caught deliberately adulterating a silver or gold coin, I don't think it's something the Mint is authorized to fool around with, in terms of "adding a double-thick plating for NIFC collector coins". Doubling the thickness would, logically, add an extra 0.0625 grams of copper to the coin. A 1 cent coin weighing 2.56 grams is still within the officially acceptable Weight Tolerance, of ±0.10 grams, but you've now pushed the composition all the way up to 4.87% copper, which I'm pretty sure is well outside the legal parameters for the coin. While they could get away with accidentally leaving the blanks in the plating pot for too long, explaining it as a failure in quality control, deliberately violating the law in this way just to make some special collector coins would be very dubious practice, I would think.
Finally, of course, the US Mint doesn't actually make the blanks for pennies - it outsources them from companies like Jarden Zinc, who supply them already plated and rimmed, ready to feed straight into the presses. So unless they get the supplier to make a special batch of double-thick-plated blanks, the Mint would have to use the exact same blanks as they would use for regular coins. According to the US Mint website on how they make coins, penny blanks intended for uncirculated coin sets are specially washed, polished, and examined by hand, but otherwise normal.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
I think my brain just imploded....
