$9.51 (?) Half Dollar Roll

[blueberra]

I'm working through my weekly half dollar Loomis box. 20 rolls so far have coughed up two 40% silver halves and the attached coin (shown with one of the 40%ers).

I did a little research on Wikipedia and discovered that the British penny has a diameter of 31 mm and a mass of 9.4 grams with composition of 97% cooper, 0.5% tin, and 2.5% zinc.

A copper nickel clad half dollar has a diameter of 30.6 mm and a mass of 11.34 grams (40% silver has mass of 11.5 grams and 90% silver has mass of 12.5 grams).

So my question is whether this coin fooled a coin counting machine into thinking is it a clad half dollar (although it seems a little too light to pass muster) or if it came into Loomis' hands via some customer-rolled hoard from a bank looking to empty its vault.

Any thoughts?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[Megalodon]

Ah, the joys of the season. Its a CRH Christmas miracle. Let us not question the unknowable.

 

[Icewing]

After a recent dumping a quart jar that was nearly full of dimes that I dug I'm convinced those machines aren't as accurate as they want you to believe. When I got my printed ticket to take to the cashier it said I had 37 pennies, 7 nickels, and 13 quarters mixed in and I know for a fact that I didn't.

 

[Diver_Down]

Garbage In - Garbage Out. You are basing your argument that the discriminator in a coin sorting machine is based on metallurgy and weight of the coin. When in fact, it would take longer with more error to sort. The larger coin sorter machines go on diameter. Now, in the case of a known denomination, (1 bag of half dollars), they aren't even sorted but just counted. The assumption is that the coins are sorted at the bank before turned into the courier. The bank doesn't submit a bag of coins that are mixed.

You can end up with different foreign coins, half/whole magician coins, etc. What likely happened is that you had some cheapskate CRH'er who realized they couldn't get $.50 for the Penny so it got rolled up with the rest of their dumps.

 

[galenrog]

Over the years I have amassed several hundred large British pennys. Nearly all have come from half dollar boxes.

Time for more coffee.