Canadian Coinage - Subject To Magnetic Forces

wallmaxx

My son is collecting all the change in the house. We have a mix of US and CDN coinage.

The Loonies and the new CDN pennies can be picked up by a magnet. I guess this is a cost saving measure by the CDN mint.

algernon

It's pobably due to all the Nano Technology we have in there for spying.

OH man, no URL's 'till I get up to 15 posts...

DUBDUBDUB.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270413,00.html

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-Algernon

wallmaxx

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270413,00.html

Tinstaafl

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270413,00.html

dogris

The US minted a zinc coated steel cent in 1943 due to WWII copper shortages. The coins eventually became rusty in use and were mistaken for slugs by vending machine magnetic countermeasures. I have several I pulled from my change back in the 1960's.

Inner10

Exactly it was sometime in the mid 90's IIRC that they realized it was costing them more then one cent in copper to produce a penny. They then switched to an alloy of steel and nickel and plated it with copper. I realize it is a federal offense but you could take a pair of scissors and cut the old ones up, bu the new ones are far too hard.

The loonies have been the same steel alloy for a longtime. I think all the change now is magnetic.

Is the American penny still copper?

TimelessQuality

I learned this little bit of trivia at a 'club in Winnipeg...
Loonies tossed on stage.. for .. uh... encouragement
After each 'dance', the 'lady' would pop back out and roll around a sweeper magnet

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-Steve

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." ~ Albert Einstein

dogris

I remember hearing something about the US cent no longer being copper. I did a Google and found the cent has been made of zinc with a copper plating since 1982. Pre-1982 pennies have a metal value of approximately 3 cents each.

Inner10

In Winnipeg I would have thought it would be nickels. Minimum you get on stage in Ottawa is a 5.

woodworkbykirk

sounds like the metals they use have changed
on a related note, back in 95-96 when the toonie came into effect several bozo's i went to high school with got all excited and were going to the bank buying $20 worth of them at a time, freezing them and then throwing them against the sidewalk to seperate the inner metal from the outer.... had to do wih different expansion rates of the two metals i guess. alot of wasted money though...

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putting down subfloor with glue and screws, well i saw dr. smith and the robot too , i had a martian burger and a sonic shake

Inner10

Damn rich kids....we would tape one to our target at the range and see who could shoot the center out first...we were so poor we could only afford to shoot out one or two a night.

Winchester

put'em on train tracks

I used to do that with coins when I was a kid. they'd get real flat and stretched out.

Didn't have loonies and toonies back then but we wouldn't have used those anyway. way too much candy could be bought with that much money back then.

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Ryan