Aluminum trial pieces

Blade

I was fascinated to find out a few years ago that the mint struck trial die pieces in aluminum. I'm sure some of these sets were made for back door coin collector connections at the mint. I had the chance to hold one of the aluminum Morgan dollars (DMPL, no less) at Anaconda's booth at the Houston Money show last year.

What surprises me the most is that aluminum was used as a metal for creating planchets. I wouldn't have thought they had the technology back then to produce aluminum. But I looked it up and aluminum is an element, so no alloying needed.

Can anyone else share history about these patterns or aluminum's use in coins?

majorbigtime

I've seen solm aluminum seated proof sets--odd & unusual. The metal is soft, so as to bring out detail when struck, and they thus may have been legitimate die trials.

RWB

Check out www.USPatterns.com. You'll find out a lot about aluminum patterns including the1974 cent

Blade

That's where I lifted this pic

oreville

The aluminum patterns were indeed part of a off metal set of proof coins sold to collectors. In copper and aluminum.

Well known in the era between 1868 and 1876 (possibly a year or so before and later).

Aluminum was a very desired exotic metal, almost as expensive as gold even as late as the late 1870's.

As a die trial piece, that would be difficult to accept since aluminum was very expensive to use as a die trial piece but since the design is exactly the same, it is easy to assume that they acted as die trial pieces.

Here are my three aluminum patterns (1874 $5, 1874 $10, and 1872 $20) graded by PCGS nearly 10 years ago as PR65. Clearly they are now quite undergraded despite my crummy pictures I took of them with my crummy camera!

mrearlygold

I briefly owned the 1868 set ( about 7 years ago ) and can tell you that I wish I could have kept it!

lasvegasteddy

i may stand corrected here but in the king of siam set was an indian head penny struck in aluminum making it one of the true rarities in the indian set but not well known

Leiana

Here's a picture of his set, I don't see an IHC but then I really don't know if he was sent one or not. There are also holes in this set.

-Amanda

HTubbs

<< <i>

Here's a picture of his set, I don't see an IHC but then I really don't know if he was sent one or not. There are also holes in this set.

-Amanda >>




Where were the other two coins when they took that picture?

HTubbs

Oreville,those are two gorgeous pieces! It's a strange revelation compared to modern times when you consider that in the 1800's aluminum articles were reserved for the most honored guests at a royal dinner,and the gold and silver for the lesser.



Hayden

Leiana

<< <i>Where were the other two coins when they took that picture? >>



They're MIA but they were a half dime and a $5 gold piece.

-Amanda

Leiana

Here's the full list of contents- I guess the Jackson medal is also not pictured.

# 1804 $10 Plain 4, PCGS PR 64 Cameo
# 1834 $5 Classic Head, PCGS PR 65 Cameo
# 1834 $2.50 Classic Head, PCGS PR 64 Cameo
# 1804 $1 Class 1, PCGS PR 67
# 1834 Half Dollar, PCGS PR 65
# 1834 Quarter Dollar, PCGS PR 65
# 1834 Dime, PCGS PR 67
# 1834 Half Dime, PCGS PR 66
# 1834 Large Cent, PCGS PR 66 Red/Brown
# 1834 Half Cent, PCGS PR 66 Red/Brown
# 1833 Andrew Jackson gold medal, PCGS PR 63 Cameo

-Amanda

HTubbs

<< <i>

<< <i>Where were the other two coins when they took that picture? >>



They're MIA but they were a half dime and a $5 gold piece.

-Amanda >>




Yes,I know the set was complete,but where were the other two coins when this picture was taken?Anyone have any comments?

Leiana

Here's the full set for you, Hayden! I don't know what is up with that other pic I have.

-Amanda

EDIT- I just read that the other coins were not included with the set in 1962 when it was announced to the world, but subsequent owners have rebuilt the set by buying the pieces seperately in order to make the set look like it did in 1836.

MrEureka

Aluminum was a very desired exotic metal, almost as expensive as gold even as late as the late 1870's.

That was true for a while, but not to such a late date. My understanding is that aluminum was cheap enough by 1867 that this Longacre pattern five cent piece would have contained five cents worth of aluminum.



By 1868, the possibility of aluminum coinage inspired the creation of some aluminum presentation sets:



However, later aluminum die trials were all made for the sole purpose of milking collectors.

One last thing. There's a unique 1855 aluminum half dollar at Princeton University. It's the only aluminum piece struck before 1867. (There are some transitional novodels dated 1863-1865, but those were backdated.) I would love to know what the market value of aluminum was in 1855. Better yet, I'd love to know the story of that coin's creation.

lasvegasteddy

i still may stand corrected but there was a king of siam set featured on the cover of coin world i believe that had an injun done in aluminum.recall is all i have(no pictures)but i'm sure others recall it capturing a cover

Conder101

<< <i>Aluminum was a very desired exotic metal, almost as expensive as gold even as late as the late 1870's. >>


At one time is was as valuable as gold but by the era you mention it was more like the value of silver. and dropping. Even in the 1860's when they used a 100 oz piece to finish the Washington Monument it was approaching semiprecious status.

The Siam set could not have had an aluminum indian head cent. The set was struck in 1834, years before Longacre was even at the mint.

When the Siam set was discovered in 1962 there were two coins missing from the set, the half dime and the with motto quarter eagle. The set did not originally contain the Jackson medal. The half dime and the medal were added years later when it was put on display at the Mandalay Bay casino. The first picture that Lieanna showed is a picture of the set as it was originally found. The other picture is photoshopped image that put the coins and medal back into the original holder as they are now all entombed in plastic.

IGWT

Taxay reproduces correspondence from Longacre to McCulloch through Linderman advocating the use of aluminum:

" . . . . I know not how far it may coincide with the present or future policy of the Government -- but it has appeared to me as a desideratum, that the portion of the circulating medium -- designated as fractional currency should possess an instrinsic value in the material of which it is composed, which it has not now.

If this view should be entertained now, or hereafter: it is important to find or suggest a material that would meet the exigency. The use of Aluminum fo the purposes of coinage, was suggested by its peculiar qualities as I became acquainted with them: especially when I ascertained that it was employed successfully in Paris for the purpose of striking medals.

. . . ."

D. Taxay, The U.S. Mint and Coinage at 245-46 (1966). Of course, the nickel advocates had their way. Andy's picture doesn't do Longacre's Indian Princess justice:

pontiacinf

<< <i>Here's the full list of contents- I guess the Jackson medal is also not pictured.

# 1804 $10 Plain 4, PCGS PR 64 Cameo
# 1834 $5 Classic Head, PCGS PR 65 Cameo
# 1834 $2.50 Classic Head, PCGS PR 64 Cameo
# 1804 $1 Class 1, PCGS PR 67
# 1834 Half Dollar, PCGS PR 65
# 1834 Quarter Dollar, PCGS PR 65
# 1834 Dime, PCGS PR 67
# 1834 Half Dime, PCGS PR 66
# 1834 Large Cent, PCGS PR 66 Red/Brown
# 1834 Half Cent, PCGS PR 66 Red/Brown
# 1833 Andrew Jackson gold medal, PCGS PR 63 Cameo


-Amanda >>



good eye amanda. The jefferson medal was the only real piece other than the 1804 dollar I really liked. I saw the set at The Worlds fair of money in NY back in 2002 i think. It was all slabbed by NGC at the time. I actually have pictures somewhere Im gonna have to find. I will say however, I was not impressed at all with the set, and I do not feel its worth the 8+ million Contursi paid for it.

however it will probably sell for over 10 mill next time around, go figure

I believe it was said farouk liked to shellac his coins to perserve them, does anyone know here if he did this to the Siam set? Maybe thats why I thought they looked funky

Blade

This is interesting and pulled from Google (citing Chemsoc.org):

'Aluminium was first prepared in an impure form by Hans Christian Oersted in Copenhagen in 1825, and isolated as an element in 1827 by Wöhler.'

Pretty amazing that the mint would strike an 1855 half dollar in this exotic metal of the time. That must have been one expensive half dollar.

majorbigtime

<< <i>i still may stand corrected but there was a king of siam set featured on the cover of coin world i believe that had an injun done in aluminum.recall is all i have(no pictures)but i'm sure others recall it capturing a cover >>



No way--that set was issued long before the indiian cent.

NumisOxide

thread.

Conder101

<< <i>I believe it was said farouk liked to shellac his coins to perserve them, does anyone know here if he did this to the Siam set? Maybe thats why I thought they looked funky >>


Farouk never owned the King of Siam set.

tmot99

I have a trade token that may have been elongated at the WCE. Here is the picture:



I've been told that this is likely a post fair rolling because as dealers have said "Aluminum was too expensive in 1893 to be used as tokens". If the time frame that you all are suggesting, by the early 1890s, it may have been feasible to have this token made of aluminum and still elongated at the WCE.

MrEureka

According to this article, it may have been cost efficient to manufacture aluminum coins as earlhy as 1855.

Lakesammman

The top right coin is copper/Al (1864 no L, PCGS MS67) and the bottom right Al (1864 c/L, PCGS P65Cam).

Interesting thread - thanks for starting the topic again.

Conder101

I don't think it would have been practical in 1855. Although they were producing some bars of aluminum, production was still very low. As I mentioned earlier when the Washington monument was finished in the 1860's the 100 oz pyramid that was used to finish it off was the largest piece of aluminum in the world at the time. (This would be a pyramid with a square base 5 inches on a side and about 5 inches high. It was kept on display in the show window at Tiffany's where it actually drew crowds.)

Annual production of aluminum had only reached 15 tons by 1885. Then in 1886 the Hall electrolyte reduction method was invented and large scale production of aluminum began to become possible. Even then it wasn't really practical until the invention of the electric dynamo in 1888. So much so that large scale processing plants began construction that year. I'm not sure what production was like between 1889 and the exposition in 1893 but I think it is conceivible that aluminum tokens could have been in production by that time. The next figure I have for annual production was in 1900. By then annual output had risen from the 15 tons of 1885 to 8,000 tons. By 1913 it was up to 65,000 tons.

oreville

Thanks to Mr Eureka and conder101 for pointing out the inaccuracy of my prior post in which I hastily stated:



<< <i>Aluminum was a very desired exotic metal, almost as expensive as gold even as late as the late 1870's >>



In refreshing my own notes I remembered that indeed as late as 1854, auminum was nearly the same value as gold except due to the vast difference in atomic weights of the two metals, aluminum yielded much more volumn of metal to generate the same amount of weight as gold.

Furthermore, as Mr, Eureka pointed out the new discoveries of extracting aluminum ocurred in the mid 1850's, I found my notes that aluminum indeed went from near parity to gold price-wise in 1854, dropping nearly 90% in price by 1865!

I surmise that aluminum's reputation as a precious metal survived a bit longer than its lofty price hence its attractiveness to the US Mint for striking it as a off metal pattern for its vast numismatic "collection" as well as for collectors beginning in the 1860's.

Conder101

There were a few reasons why the mint had such a facination for the use of aluminum. The softness of the metal was attractive as a means of greatly extending die life. (Unfortunately even though the metal is very soft, the oxide coating that forms on its surface is VERY abraisive.) Even though lower in value, it was still a isem-precious metal but with its lower density nearly five times as many coins could be struck from the same weight of metal. Finally, they were looking at having to eventually retire all of the fractional currency notes that were being printed. They really did not want to have to do that with silver. If they could use aluminum they could retire five times as notes for the same cost in metal.

RWB

If I remember correctly (and I'll have to check my files tonight), after the beginning of the Civil War the last coins to vanish from circulation were the CuNi cents and 3-cent silvers. At that time, there were discussions about striking 3-cent pieces in aluminum in the belief that at least these would circulate. I don't believe I saw enough documents to round out the story although within a couple of years nickel and CuNi alloys were again preferred.

When aluminum was considered for coins in 1912, the mint's objections were that it was too soft and quickly clogged the dies. They also presented evidence from Europe that nearly every country that had tried aluminum or various aluminum alloys gave up.

Based on reading a lot of mint documents from the 1870s, the impression I have is that copper, aluminum and other off-metal proof sets were made because the result were visually pleasing, and the coins were cheap. Copper examples of some of the 1877-1878 dollar patterns were distributed at little or no cost even when silver examples were available for $1. Having a complete 1-cent through $20 set struck in normal metals cost $46.25 (approx), but in copper only the cent (or 2-cent) carried it’s face value, therefore the set was likely sold for a few dollars at most.

Many patterns, such as the Goloid sets, were priced at the cost of metal, not the nominal face value since these pieces were not really coins. (They had not been accepted as designs for circulating coins and were thus not “coins.” In the legal sense – only metallic tokens of proposed designs.

Re: Value of aluminum. (Source: International Aluminum Institute)

“In 1827 Friedrich Wöhler described a process for producing aluminum as a powder by reacting potassium with anhydrous aluminum chloride. In 1854 Henri Sainte-Claire Deville of France improved Wöhler's method to create the first commercial process. The metal's price, initially higher than that of gold and platinum, dropped by 90% over the next 10 years. The price is still high enough to inhibit its widespread adoption by industry.”

If this is correct, an ounce of aluminum metal would have cost approximately $1.50 in 1865.

Hope this does not confuse rather than clarify.

oreville

RWB:

Hope the heat is not getting to you! Good post! Hope it did not knock you out!