The common Magnetic 1942-1943 P nickel. No big deal.

Aspie_Rocco

I was interested after reading a recent post about these magnetic Jefferson nickels. Being a fan of the series I had a couple rolls of “war” nickels around so I searched a softball sized bag and found 8 that stick to a strong magnet. This magnet is a useful tool for a variety of electrical and manual labor tasks as well as being incredibly strong, so I used it. Something about some 1942 P and 1943 P nickels is just magnetic. If you search your own rolls you will find them too. No big deal.
Curious that it is only these two years and both are Philadelphia mint marks.

MsMorrisine

thank you for the report

jmlanzaf

So, you're saying you found $10k of rare nickels....

Aspie_Rocco

The irony of the situation is that I found a rare 1943 DDO fs103 in absolute terrible condition while examining the magnetic coins with a microscope. I have been looking for that variety several years now, and I had it the whole time. I still need an uncirculated example...

There are no distinguishing characteristics that they have in common other than the P mint and the date. I checked to see if they might possibly counterfeit, but there seems to be at least three different obverse dies if not more in my group of 8.

I imagine if someone is brave enough to do this test with uncirculated examples, a tiny bit more information might be discerned about how common the dies used are in relation to the magnetic properties... maybe.

With just basic information I assume the composition change in 1942 and possible experimental metals is the best explanation. I am curious to find examples from 44 and 45, Denver or San Francisco.

LanceNewmanOCC

@Aspie_Rocco said:

.
jee wiz. how did this not become public knowledge? if i ever learned it, i forgot it. here are the specs for the war nickels. 9% MN - sorry for the length of the image. when i first uploaded it many years ago, i did it as one big image for the convenience of d/l.

Aspie_Rocco

Now I am curious about the Specific Gravity of these coins, 8.92 or 9.25... or something else. I don’t have a scale capable of such measurements.

LanceNewmanOCC

@Aspie_Rocco said:
Now I am curious about the Specific Gravity of these coins, 8.92 or 9.25... or something else. I don’t have a scale capable of such measurements.

.
there are some fun youtube vidz re: specific gravity testing. IIRC, it wasn't really difficult, just gotta have the numbers and formulas/conversions or something.

Aspie_Rocco

Interesting new count. Sorted about 500-ish war nickels. Findings;
5- 1942 P
15-1943 P
1- 1944 P
1- 1944 S

There were several that could be moved by the magnet but not physically lifted. I only counted coins that could be lifted and moved staying attached

LanceNewmanOCC

now we've worked, now we play. fun with copper and magnets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENgdSF8ppA

CaptHenway

A few observations.

This chart is the umpteenth version of a chart originally created by Ed Fleischmann of Coin World’s Collectors Clearinghouse department in the early 1970's. He did a few updates, I did one update, we both used it at ANACS and it has many incarnations over the years.

The S.G. of 9.25 given for the warniks was calculated by Ed as an average of many observations. Notice the asterisk. It is caused by the denser silver content.

Doing an S.G. is not that difficult. I think I wrote a brief tutorial on it. Will try to find it and post it.

I have no idea why multiple pieces stick to magnets.

MsMorrisine

Your next article!

JBK

I believe that this phenomenon is due to the alloy mix.

If you look up manganese you will find that while it is not magnetic, it can become magnetic under certain conditions, one of which involves the addition of copper.

ricko

Interesting thread. Thanks for the study @Aspie_Rocco. Looks as if we have some alloys that are not fully documented. Cheers, RickO

Mark

I have been reminded by a former forum member that some metals aside from Iron are attracted to a strong magnet. Among that short list are Nickel and Manganese.

jesbroken

Google supplies the answers? Hmmmm.
Jim

davewesen

wow, cherrypicking what you have in your collection is the BEST.

jayPem

Great to see another potential mega-saga effectively neutralized by smart experimentation!
And most awesome, the OP did it without any name calling or hyper ventilating!
Classy Aspie!

LanceNewmanOCC

@CaptHenway said:
Doing an S.G. is not that difficult. I think I wrote a brief tutorial on it. Will try to find it and post it.

I have no idea why multiple pieces stick to magnets.

it isn't that they are sticking to refrigerator magnets, they are sticking to mini super-magnets. fwiw

copper and manganese both have enough magnetic properties (and enough in the composition) to have some reaction to super magnets, even if mini ones (as demonstrate). and like others have said it is a faint attraction which is what one would expect. (for those that like this neat kinda stuff, they have made square and spherical magnets about the size of a marble that come in packs and you look for nails in the wall and the individual magnets will hang there on the wall (yes even the spherical ones) precisely where the nails/screws or whatever are. probably the easiest and most effective method i've seen. better than my square magnet hanging from a string swinging back and forth)

kinda makes sense too. during war times, pandemics etc (extreme periods of times makes for unusual productions of things) this has caused MUCH turmoil as you well know for the mints for the entire length that men have been making coins but we can see it very easily in just our own coinage. leave it to strange times to create strange exceptions/nuance. we can see it in errors, varieties, probably patterns as well and more. (tokens, currency, maybe even bullion somewhere along the line)

this is kinda one of the reasons i seemingly uselessly bump certain info threads (couple dozen or so) a couple times a year. tons of info that is very useful that many underestimate that can have a detrimental effect if not revisited but with our "hobby" there is NO shortage of this.

anablep

Using a neodymium magnet, I was able to pick up war nickels of various dates, including 42-P, 43-S, 45-S, and 44-P.

In fact, almost all of them are magnetic so some degree. Most barely stick to the magnet, some jump right on and stick quite well to the neodymium. Granted, that kind of magnet is very powerful.

LanceNewmanOCC

just a ttt for any updates and also a reminder of the things that manage to escape us at times. a good reminder, imo.

JJewlz

Thanks for this thread. I just had to go through my bag and check them with a magnet ha! I told my kids to check theirs when they had time.