Plated Coins?

I can only assume it is people practising their chemistry skills?

By the way I assume you mean the UK by GB? In which case we don't have cents here yet

Modern British pennies (since the late 1980's) are made of copper-plated steel; such a coin that appears to be "nickel-finished" could simply be a normal British penny that's had the original copper layer stripped away, though you would expect raw steel to show a little rust. Or it could, as QuickSilver says, be someone deliberately replating a coin.


A "golden-looking" halfcrown is indeed curious. It could simply be strange toning; I've seen .500 fine silver coins take on some very odd colours when placed in strange environments. It could be a paint or replate job, it could even be a brass fake - check the weight.


Sure, that's one possibility.

QuickSilver's chemistry hypothesis is also a possibility; I have an Australian bronze 2¢ coin my dad electroplated with zinc in a chemistry demonstration.

If the coin being replated is about the same size as another more valuable coin of different metal, it could be an attempt at counterfeiting; making the coin appear more valuable than it really is. British farthings and American "racketeer" nickels suffered from this. In most countries, it was and still is illegal to do this.

Farthings could be gold-plated to make them look like either sovereigns or half-sovereigns (the farthing is actually halfway between the two gold coin sizes). It was also possible to "silver-plate" a farthing to get something resembling a sixpence.

This "plating trick" is more effective for British coins than, say, French or American, because the obverse of all British coin denominations is identical. Pass your coin across the counter face-up and it's likely the shopkeeper wouldn't notice until it was too late.

Today, in an assortment of foreign coin, I got a West German 5 pf. piece that was silver in color.