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I have conflicting reference material on what years the shell case cents were made. Some say 44-46, others say 44-47. I have a 47 that tested at 95% copper & 5% zinc with a brass color look. How many 47's were shell case? Confused.
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When you say "Some say"...who are you referring to? Have you attempted any research yet?. What type of test are you mentioning when you say 95% to 5%. I am asking because a brass color look doesn't mean much. It could be environmental concerns, or another issue. Did you actually have tests done to determine your 1947's composition? It would have had to be detailed enough to break down the .050% into tin and zinc.
Officially, 1944-1946 has the cartridge casings used. Composition was .950 copper and .050 zinc. For 1947-1958, composition was .950 copper and .050 tin and zinc.Bob Piazza
Former Lincoln Cent Attributer Coppercoins.com -
1944 and/or 1945 if they were used at all. First off, there were not nearly enough shell casings available to make more than a small portion of any years/mint's production. And, yes, I know there are several sources that say otherwise.
There is evidence that some casings were brought to the Philadelphia mint, but there is also evidence that casings were used to mint foreign coins. Note my comment above. However, there is no evidence that how much (if any) was left for US production. See https://www.cointalk.com/threads/she.../#post-1639319 particularly #13 and #14.
Sorry, but I doubt I have alleviated your confusion.Comment
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The way the military works the spent casings would not have come back to the states... Cost prohibitive... They would have used what ever was available here in the U.S.!!!Jim
(A.K.A. Elmer Fudd)
Be verwy verwy quiet... I'm hunting coins!!! Good Hunting!!!
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References include for years 44-46; Complete Guide to LC's-Lange, Guide Book Of LC's- Bowers, US Coins-Yoeman; for years 44-47; Looking through LC's-Daugherty. A spectrometer metal analysis was done at 95 & 5% with no trace metals. Have any 47 shell case cents been reported?Comment
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Thanks for expanding on that Barry. I am not aware of any 1947 shell case cents being reported. Even then, I would ask who would they have been reported to, and why. Considering there were about 5 1/2 billion cents struck in those years, it would be difficult to tell without them being uncirculated, or having an analysis performed. As far as the 95% to 5% metal analysis, your 5% with no trace metals is not what I would expect for that year, but that is really into another realm of which I am not an expert. If trace metals of tin were looked for, and the analysis was that detailed, I would have expected to see it in 1947. Of course that doesn't mean that it was made with a shell casing added to the mix. It is hard to know how many casings were used in any one year, or how many may have been left by 1947. I guess my main point was that you could not tell conclusively if any cent was made with shell casings based on color alone. However it is written in some books that the color was slightly different on uncirculated specimens. Is your coin and uncirculated example?Bob Piazza
Former Lincoln Cent Attributer Coppercoins.comComment
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This is a thread where we talked about it before:
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Shell cases were used according to the older Red Books. It would be real easy to mix the two
considering Brass is a Alloy of Copper. Brass starts out as Copper then Tin and and what ever else they used is added then
heated to form a Brass ingot. Sure see funny colored coins from this era.Comment
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Ive TIG welded brass and bronze before and its been years since Ive done so. I cant remember the composition of the welding rod used, but I remember it was different then the material being welded, because the weld would "tone" differently, and they would be noticable. Just like any alloy, temperature and its environment has a lot to do with its "tone" during manufacturing, and in my opinion, if it was never mentioned that shell cases were used during the war, then no one would be looking for it or would even notice the difference. With the Lincoln cent being heavily collected since 1909, and a lot of collectors doing their best to protect their collection, no one has a full set of Lincoln cents with a perfectly matched tone across all the years, because they were never the same tone to start with.Comment
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Took me long enough to find this article. Except it was on 43 this talks about using shell casing and making foreign coins.Comment
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To all, thanks for being patient. Since the holidays are over, I will post a picture of this coin this month.Comment
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I'm Back. Sorry for the long wait. I will be posting a lot of other pics in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
As far as this thread, here are some possible original unc pics. The second pic was done in the sun. What do you think? Remember the spectrometer test showed no trace of tin.Comment
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Barry, I've got a couple of thoughts on this. The first one being is that the available data on these is conflicting, and always will be. And I'm not sure there is enough collector interest to warrant a huge amount of research...partly because we see so many colors on toned cents that a slight composition change probably would be difficult to discern. But...I think if somebody does have an interest and the time and tools...go for it ! If were taking on a task like that the first thing I would do is have spectrometer testing done on shell casings of the era. The only problem might be that if shell casings were actually used, I would think they would have been mixed in with the normal metals as they do when using recycled copper.Comment
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Thanks. I agree. Maybe one day I'll take it on. RPM's coming up next.Comment
Looking forward to the pics!!!
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