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My 10 Year Olds $2 Junk Bin Finds Today At Local Show- Clad Sac?

Just got home from the local coin show. We have one every 3rd Sunday of each month. It's not very big, 50 to 75 dealers. I spent 4 hours going through everyones inventory seeking a Morgan or Peace Dollar with some nice toning that wouldn't get BB'd in a 64 or better. I finally gave up and turned my attention to getting something that would interest my 10 year old who was with me. About 4 hours after the show started, a dealer came in with 2 handtrucks of big cardboard boxes. He proceeded to empty them out on the 2 long tables that he occupied. Inside the boxes, thousands of 2X2 cardboard flips filled with junk. He put up a sign, everything was $2 each. There were several folding chairs in front of his table, so I figured what the heck, it's a good opportunity to sit down anyway.

We started flying through what was there, not really picking anything up, just moving the piles all around to see if anything would jump out at us. We noticed many nearly blank nickel planchets that were fairly free of bag marks and that had been struck just slightly on one spot causing that familiar bulging out of the metal. Well, most were not very interesting, but one on that little bulge had "000 d". What are the odds?
Then I noticed Sac dollar that looked a lighter golden color then normal on the obverse. When I turned it over, it was the color of a normal clad coin. I held a state quarter next to it and the metal color was identical in color. On the way out, one of the dealers who sells some jewelry as well weighed it on a gram scale and the weight was the same as a normal Sac dollar. When I got home I took it out of the 2X2 to look at it more closely through a loupe. I looked closely at the rims and it is definitely not tampered with. It also is the same width as a normal Sac.

Has anyone seen this before? How would this happen? I thought that Sac dollar planchets were one solid gold color all the way through.

Comments

  • mdwoodsmdwoods Posts: 5,546 ✭✭✭
    The Sac is Manganese Brass clad with a pure copper core. Here is a great website that has info on small dollar coins.

    Small Dollars
    National Register Of Big Trees

    We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads.
  • I checked the site. I'm not exactly sure what manganese looks like, but I've seen zinc and nickel, of course. Somehow the 2% nickel that is in this coin found its way entirely to the reverse of this coin. I'm not sure how, but my son is thrilled to have it. image
  • Dog97Dog97 Posts: 7,874 ✭✭✭
    Well an off-metal planchet won't be normal on 1 side and clad on the other. If it were a clad planchet you would see the clad layers on the edge so it's either plated or has some weird toning.
    There were some silver colored Sacs turning up when they first came out that nobody could explain. Some theories included chemical reactions from the newly struck red hot planchets and the tote bins the Mint uses, thus the 1 sided off color.
    Change that we can believe in is that change which is 90% silver.

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