Anyone Ever Try The "Sound Test" On 2001-2003 Quarters?

That's quite cool, you have the resources to electroplate stuff properly! Last time I tried electroplating an aluminium coin with copper, it won't stick to the actual coin surface and whatever did get deposited falls off when you take it out of the solution.
I hope there's something interesting with the nickel, but seeing as it is solid cupro-nickel instead of plated I don't think there's too much under it. Everything is silvery in the nickel I'm engraving, and I've removed all the relief (so I'm engraving starting from the background level) and cutting deeper into the coin.

I agree, but extend it further to anything you buy. Fakes are everywhere now

Well I feel silly now

I suppose the chemists here already knew that.

I stripped the 1983 nickel and it came out clean. It was a copper deposit from another coin stuck to it. When I put the coin in the acid, it went black confirming what DBM said.
As for the penny, I grabbed if from the wrong pile. It was a steel core to start with so that is why it was magnetic.

I plated a 1997 penny that was certainly not magnetic when I started, and it was still not magnetic when I finished.
That's why they call it an experiment I guess, so we can learn from our mistakes.
My wife says I am a crazy old man, maybe she is onto something.

Hands-on experience is the best way to learn, so experiments are great

As for my engraving, I've cut pretty deep into the coin to make Victoria's veil and I can say it IS solid. Unless the core is a tiny flat bit of something in the centre.

I remember reading that is you electroplate a non-magnetic coin two or three times it with a magnetic material, a magnet would pick it up. Makes me want to try electroplating stuff myself too.
You must have an awesome shop to have all these stuff to do electroplating. If it's simple enough to do maybe I could ask permission to do it in the lab. Is it done like regular electroplating? A battery and some wires, metal you want to plate with on the (+) side, metal you want to plate on the (-) side, and in a solution of ions of the metal you want to plate with.

Wish I'd brought some aluminium coins when I went back to Jakarta last Christmas, I would like to experiment on them.

It seems when you break the nickel plating the steel rusts. So instead of zinc rot we have steel rot in Canada

wolfman, I have some chrome nickels to spare, PM me and I`ll be glad to send them along for your experiments.

@ DBM: much appreciated! All in the name of science right?

@ SlurExe97 Violent indeed. Like I said the power is too high for quality results.




I am sure the counterfeiters have removed the chrome before and used an alloy to fake a tombac as well.

This experiment does have a destination though. My 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in a couple years, and I would like to plate a set of coins with silver for that occasion. If I get that right I will gold plate a year set for my parents 50th anniversary as well.

How did this post go from "sound test" to experiments....haha

That's right, I was thinking that this morning. The original post was trying to determine what is inside! Now we know.
A couple AA batteries will likely do the job but it could take an hour or two to plate a coin.
Mine was done in under 2 minutes and the nickel I showed was the anode. I suppose that a more robust anode would not have burned but that was the only nickel source I had lying around.I choose to recycle when I can. I couldn't have bought a nickel anode for 2.5¢.


As far as the sound test, I think I will dig out some 1982 US pennies to try it on. Has anyone done that yet?

The burned one was .999 nickel I used it to make the nickle acetate, and to plate the penny.

I used 12 volts which caused extreme bubbling and fuming.
2 or 3 AA in series should be plenty.