Doing a first sort on a few rolls of Canadian pennies. One observation--there are very few steel pennies in Canada, even though all of the pennies made since 2000 are supposed to be steel. My magnet is telling me that probably <20% of pennies in this era are steel, the rest are presumably zinc.
I tend to think that the reason for the use of zinc is to prolong the life of the dies used to stamp the pennies. Not being an expert, what do you think would be the best way to do this? Would you stamp out a lot of zincs first, then the steel; stamp out steel pennies until the dies start to wear then switch to zinc; or some sort of alternating scheme. My thinking is that alternating wouldn't work because you probably have to change the pressure of the stamp depending on the metal being worked.
That's something I really don't know about. I'm guessing even if the coin blanks are made of steel the dies will certainly be made of much higher grade steel, but as to whether or not the same dies are used to stamp both steel and zinc coins you've got me.
Wouldn't it be great if someone who worked at a mint were to start posting on here?
I'm guessing there are at least some mint employees who are aware of copper hoarding and perhaps of this forum.
Feel free to chime in with your expert knowledge ;)
I have sorted about $500 in pennies and came up with about $2 in canadian steel and $7 in canadian copper. These mostly go to my kids as payment for helping. They like them because they are different.
Canadian pennies
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Posted - 03/18/2008 : 20:29:53
