| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
 Posted - 03/13/2007 : 13:29:42
|
Every place that I have looked says silver war nickels should weigh 5 grams...same as regular nickels. But by my calculation a war nickel should be 25% heavier than a regular nickel. Silver is almost twice as dense as copper and nickel. Unless the war nickels were actually smaller...Im so confused.
This brings up a good point... How hard is it going to be for machines to adapt if nickels change or pennies change again? Is it possible that existing machines are the major barrier discouraging a change today?
"In 1942, with the advent of World War II, nickel, all of a sudden, was declared a strategic metal which was necessary in the production of munitions. The U.S. Mint found itself in competition with the War Department, and there was just not enough metal for both. High level discussions were conducted, and the topic was a non-nickel alloy for the Jefferson 5¢ piece. In theory, this was not considered a major problem, but often theory and reality differ greatly. The problem was legal receptacles, i.e. pay telephones and vending machines. Since the primary use for the nickel, at that time, was for these two types of legal receptacles, and the counterfeiting detection used in these machines were based on the weight and electrical resistance of the nickel, then the new alloy used needed to comply with that of a nickel, or close down the use of millions of machines during wartime. The Mint's metallurgists finally resolved the problem, and by an Act of Congress on March 27, 1942, the new alloy for the nickel was adopted: 35% silver, 56% copper and 9% manganese. These new "wartime silver nickels"
were issued from October 1942 through December 1945."
|
|
|
Metalophile
Penny Collector Member
USA
320 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 18:04:34
|
War nickels are 35% silver, 9% manganese and the balance Copper. According to the Red Book, it contains 0.05626 troy oz. silver = 1.749 881 605 grams. Divide that by 0.35, and you get almost exactly 5 grams.
Metalophile |
 |
|
|
pencilvanian
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
2209 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 18:18:19
|
I decided to find out how much a war nickel weighs.
I put a near perfect 1945 S nickel on my trusty but rusty Sartorious 1212 scale.
End result-weight 4.99 grams.
The scale might be off a little(0.01 grams) or their might be just a touch of wear effecting the weight of the coin.
I think the proportions of silver, maganese and copper allowed the war nickels to weigh 5 grams.
While they didn't have computers back then, they did have mathematicians with slide rules to figure out how much of each metal would be needed to make a nickel without nickel in it.
One reason they didn't put too much silver in the war nickels, if the public discovered the war nickels were worth more melt value than face value, the public would have hoarded them (history repeats itself.)
As far as reconfiguring the weight of pennies and nickels to feed into vending machines, The government still has mathematicians and metallurgists on their payroll, or they could outsource the work, to figure out how to make a penny/cent or nickel out of a cheaper metal and weigh the current weight.
I doubt the penny/cent is really a concern for vending machines, I can't recall seeing any vending machine accept one cent coins in recent memory. |
|
|
|
just carl
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 10:26:03
|
Toll booths here in Illinois take cents. Lots of people dump cents in them as a way of protesting tolls. Of course the government just laughs at that. They have coin counters.
As to the exact weight of any coin from over 50 years ago I don't think anyone would have noticed if a coin came out with a plus or minus 0.01g difference in weight. I've weighed many, many coins with two different scales and have had some realy interesting results.
Carl |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Nickel weight
Forum Locked
