1942 Lincoln Cent: Error or Experimental Piece?

MrEureka

I just got the results back on a somewhat brassy-looking and overweight (but otherwise completely normal-looking) 1942 Lincoln Cent. Can anyone here tell me what I have? Is it struck on a foreign planchet? Is there any chance it's an experimental piece?

1942 1C 84% CU 11% ZN 5% SN 3.6 GRAMS

GoldenEyeNumismatics

Certainly the right year to be an experimental...

Rampage

<< <i>I just got the results back on a somewhat brassy-looking and overweight (but otherwise completely normal-looking) 1942 Lincoln Cent. Can anyone here tell me what I have? Is it struck on a foreign planchet? Is there any chance it's an experimental piece?

1942 1C 84% CU 11% ZN 5% SN 3.6 GRAMS >>



That's pretty sweet Andy. Did PCGS determine the composition or did you do it before submittal? Any pics of the coin?

MrEureka

Did PCGS determine the composition or did you do it before submittal? Any pics of the coin?

NGC had the coin tested. Now it's being graded. No pics yet.

Robb

I think the Cuba 1 centavo, El Salvador 1 centavo, Guatemala 1 centavo, Fiji penny and Surinam 1 cent/centsukken were foreign copper coins minted by us at that time.

MrEureka

I think the Cuba 1 centavo, El Salvador 1 centavo, Guatemala 1 centavo, Fiji penny and Surinam 1 cent/centsukken were foreign copper coins minted by us at that time.

Does my piece match the weight and composition of any of those coins?

Broadstruck

I seen 1942 brass cents but never any further mention then it was just struck on a foreign planchet.

The US Mints did strike Brass coins for Nicaragua using surplus shell casings from the war between 1942-1945.

Robb

I do not know the metal composition but the coins were listed in an article in Coin World with their metal composition. The article was about foreign copper coins made by us during WW2, especially in 1943 when we put out the steel cent. I believe the article was from August or September of '08. The DarkSide forum would probably be of better help.

Billyray

According to my KM disks ...

Cuba 1c 1943 Brass 2.3g
El Salvador 1c 1942 Bronze 15mm 2.5g
Guatemala 1c 1942 Brass 3.0g
Fiji 1c 1942S Brass 26mm with center hole
Suriname 1c 1943P Brass 18mm 2.5g

EDIT

Nicaragua 1c 1943 Brass no weight or diameter listed, i'll see if i have one to weigh

Billyray

Just did a search for 3.6, none in that era, but I'll keep looking

RWB

Too much copper and tin for one of the US experimental cents - getting reid of those elements was the reason for the 1943 steel cent.

CaptHenway

<< <i>Too much copper and tin for one of the US experimental cents - getting reid of those elements was the reason for the 1943 steel cent. >>



Good point.
TD

MrEureka

Too much copper and tin for one of the US experimental cents - getting reid of those elements was the reason for the 1943 steel cent.

Couldn't a 10% reduction in copper at least have been considered?

kranky

There sure was a lot of experimentation with the 1942 cents.

Billyray

here's a link to an article about US OMSs

Minterrornews

MrEureka

One more thing to consider: Various alloys were considered for the five cent piece before settling on the alloy of 35% silver, 56% copper and 9% manganese. I wonder if any of those alloys match that of my piece. If so, it could explain the thickness of my piece, which is significantly greater than that of a normal Lincoln cent.

AUandAG

not Nicaragua in '42

None made for them that year.

bob

CaptHenway

<< <i>I just got the results back on a somewhat brassy-looking and overweight (but otherwise completely normal-looking) 1942 Lincoln Cent. Can anyone here tell me what I have? Is it struck on a foreign planchet? Is there any chance it's an experimental piece?

1942 1C 84% CU 11% ZN 5% SN 3.6 GRAMS >>



Just a WAG, but perhaps they were testing a brass plating technique, and simply plated over a normal cent planchet and then struck it. The resultant heavy planchet would not be a proposed replacement composition as such, but simply a test of how well a certain plating took an impression and/or adhered to a core.

Unrelated question: did anybody think to do a really good specific gravity of the piece while it was out of plastic?

TD

GrumpyEd

I put one aside that sounds similar, it's only about .2 overweight.

Normal cent on the left for comparison:

errormaven

Overweight brass or "brassy" cents are well known from 1941 with a few from 1942. Most weigh 3.3 - 3.4 grams. Most have a streaky appearance. Controversy surrounds them. Alan Herbert thinks they're foreign stock (although no candidates existed in 1941). Others think they're foreign planchets (although, again, there is no likely candidate from this time period). It's possible that they represent "orphan" off-metal errors -- coins struck on discs whose origin and purpose are inscrutable. Finally, and most prosaically, they may simply be cents struck on planchets punched out of rolled-thick stock derived from an improperly mixed alloy. Standard-weight improper alloy mix errors are abundant in 1941.

RWB

There are as many unknowns relating to the WW-II experiments as "knowns."

The standard alloy was changed during the first half of 1941 to 95% Cu and 5% Zn with a trace of tin. There appears to have been no standard except to add enough tin to show up in an assay. Each mint did what they could with the metals they had available.
As to 1942 experiments, the only thing involving copper that I have seen so far involved copper plating. Almost everything was on the table and experiments shifted as the WPB added more metals to the restricted list.

Smittys

1941 Cent .... 89% Copper,10% zinc, 1% tin
I have a "brass" one too it was tested by an X-Ray Fluorescence Analyzer.