Cupro Nickel Pennies: Test Pieces? Or What?

I was visiting the safety deposit box and pulled out a couple of coins that have been languishing there for a few years. I never really found out what these were about.

These two coins came from a very large collection that I inherited 10 or 20 years ago. That collection had sat dormant since the 1950s and was accumulated over a lifetime before that.

These have a very similar appearance and similar (heavy) weights.

They both appear to be unplated cupro-nickel. They both pass the "edge scratch" test. The edge scratch suggested that the material was harder than normal copper/bronze and was deeper than the scratch could penetrate.

As a next step, SPP-Ottawa, the moderator of the Canadian forum, subjected the coins to XRF analysis using the extremely well equipped lab to which he has access.

The results were:

1900: 9.36g, 85.3% copper, 8.9% nickel, 4.1% tin, 1% zinc.

1909: 9.41g, 80.6% copper, 13.7% nickel, 4.4% tin, 0.8% zinc.

The alloys are similar but not identical.

The coins now reside in CCCS coin holders.

Any thoughts on these? Anyone seen anything like this before?