Brass appearance?

joeykoins

Hi guys, this 2010 Lincoln I found while roll searching. It appears to be a brass likeness? Do you guys think this can turn naturally or something done at the Mint or someone played games? Thanks guys.

FredWeinberg

toning or circulation 'color'

Does not look any different to me, in your photos,
except it's a bit lighter in color.

Weigh it in grams or grains, and I'm sure you'll find
it's well within Mint tolerance for a normal copper-
coated zinc planchet.

Jimnight

Maybe from being handled. I've ran across cents like that too going through rolls.

joeykoins

Hey, thanks Fred for replying! Yeah, your right(as usual) I just weighed it. It does weigh the norm. 2.5. So just a natural tone, huh? Thank you for your expertise. Lol

johnny9434

@Jimnight said:
Maybe from being handled. I've ran across cents like that too going through rolls.

What Jim said here

ricko

I have run across cents that have such 'color'...not many, but a couple.... I did weigh them with the same result you report....I think it is just an environmental effect due to where they may have been for a while...Cheers, RickO

Oldhoopster

It is possible for the copper plating to include zinc which would give the coin a “brassy” appearance. The zinc blanks are plated after being punched from stock strips. If blanks fall into the plating bath, they can give up Zn to the solution and if the level is high enough, it can yield a brass plating. I recall reading about this problem sometime around 1983-84. It seems that this was a early production issue that was eventually solved

One problem, however, is that you can’t solely rely on color to confirm the coin has a brass plating. Environmental exposures can also cause color changes in copper, so how can you tell? Handheld XRF units can detect zinc, but the X-Rays can penetrate well below the approx. 8 micron thick plating. And underneath the plating is the zinc planchet, so if the Zn shows up on the readout, is it coming from the plating or the zinc core? You won’t know.

I have a couple coins that I pulled from circulation in 1983-84 that I am absolutely positive are brass plated. However, I don’t know of a non-destructive analytical test that can prove it’s brass, so they just sit in 2x2s. Nothing I can do without data.

joeykoins

@Oldhoopster said,

Thanks for the nice explanation. I appreciate it.

jmlanzaf

@Oldhoopster said:
It is possible for the copper plating to include zinc which would give the coin a “brassy” appearance. The zinc blanks are plated after being punched from stock strips. If blanks fall into the plating bath, they can give up Zn to the solution and if the level is high enough, it can yield a brass plating. I recall reading about this problem sometime around 1983-84. It seems that this was a early production issue that was eventually solved

One problem, however, is that you can’t solely rely on color to confirm the coin has a brass plating. Environmental exposures can also cause color changes in copper, so how can you tell? Handheld XRF units can detect zinc, but the X-Rays can penetrate well below the approx. 8 micron thick plating. And underneath the plating is the zinc planchet, so if the Zn shows up on the readout, is it coming from the plating or the zinc core? You won’t know.

I have a couple coins that I pulled from circulation in 1983-84 that I am absolutely positive are brass plated. However, I don’t know of a non-destructive analytical test that can prove it’s brass, so they just sit in 2x2s. Nothing I can do without data.

XRF would give you a surface analysis nondestructively

Oldhoopster

@jmlanzaf said:

@Oldhoopster said:
It is possible for the copper plating to include zinc which would give the coin a “brassy” appearance. The zinc blanks are plated after being punched from stock strips. If blanks fall into the plating bath, they can give up Zn to the solution and if the level is high enough, it can yield a brass plating. I recall reading about this problem sometime around 1983-84. It seems that this was a early production issue that was eventually solved

One problem, however, is that you can’t solely rely on color to confirm the coin has a brass plating. Environmental exposures can also cause color changes in copper, so how can you tell? Handheld XRF units can detect zinc, but the X-Rays can penetrate well below the approx. 8 micron thick plating. And underneath the plating is the zinc planchet, so if the Zn shows up on the readout, is it coming from the plating or the zinc core? You won’t know.

I have a couple coins that I pulled from circulation in 1983-84 that I am absolutely positive are brass plated. However, I don’t know of a non-destructive analytical test that can prove it’s brass, so they just sit in 2x2s. Nothing I can do without data.

XRF would give you a surface analysis nondestructively

XRF is a non-destructive test, but the beam penetrates below the surface of the material. If the XRF Unit detects Zn, is it from the approx 8 micron plated layer, or from the zinc in the core of the planchet just underneath?

jmlanzaf

@Oldhoopster said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@Oldhoopster said:
It is possible for the copper plating to include zinc which would give the coin a “brassy” appearance. The zinc blanks are plated after being punched from stock strips. If blanks fall into the plating bath, they can give up Zn to the solution and if the level is high enough, it can yield a brass plating. I recall reading about this problem sometime around 1983-84. It seems that this was a early production issue that was eventually solved

One problem, however, is that you can’t solely rely on color to confirm the coin has a brass plating. Environmental exposures can also cause color changes in copper, so how can you tell? Handheld XRF units can detect zinc, but the X-Rays can penetrate well below the approx. 8 micron thick plating. And underneath the plating is the zinc planchet, so if the Zn shows up on the readout, is it coming from the plating or the zinc core? You won’t know.

I have a couple coins that I pulled from circulation in 1983-84 that I am absolutely positive are brass plated. However, I don’t know of a non-destructive analytical test that can prove it’s brass, so they just sit in 2x2s. Nothing I can do without data.

XRF would give you a surface analysis nondestructively

XRF is a non-destructive test, but the beam penetrates below the surface of the material. If the XRF Unit detects Zn, is it from the approx 8 micron plated layer, or from the zinc in the core of the planchet just underneath?

Penetration depth of metals is pretty shallow and can be changed by adjusting the incident angle. 8 micron is pretty thick if probed at a grazing angle.

XPS only has a 10 nm or so penetration depth.

MFeld

The great majority of coins that look somewhat different, are just regular coins that, for any number of reasons, look different.

Based on the emails I receive and many posts on this and other forums, if aliens are watching us, they must think that “error” coins are far more common than non-error coins.😉

jmlanzaf

@MFeld said:
The great majority of coins that look somewhat different, are just regular coins that, for any number of reasons, look different.

Based on the emails I receive and many posts on this and other forums, if aliens are watching us, they must think that “error” coins are far more common than non-error coins.😉

That's because the aliens are looking at the wrong part of the equation. What the aliens should conclude is that everyone thinks they are going to get rich because all errors are rare and valuable and so they start seeing things. It is proof to the aliens that humans are delusional. [That might make them more prone to avoid the planet in the future.]

What non-aliens should consider is that if they find an error after just a couple days of looking, it is probably not that rare and, therefore, not that valuable.

messydesk

It's hard to tell from the picture just how brassy the coin looks, but if you heat a Zincoln in a toaster oven for a while and it'll start turning a brassy color.

jmlanzaf

@messydesk said:
It's hard to tell from the picture just how brassy the coin looks, but if you heat a Zincoln in a toaster oven for a while and it'll start turning a brassy color.

I'm never eating at your house.

messydesk

@jmlanzaf said:

@messydesk said:
It's hard to tell from the picture just how brassy the coin looks, but if you heat a Zincoln in a toaster oven for a while and it'll start turning a brassy color.

I'm never eating at your house.

Don't knock it until you've had my hickory toned Morgans.