Usage Of Alloy Materials In Coin Production

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Name: Anthony Goh Kwan Chin Group: ACB2 – AA1 Date: 25th March 2014
Title: Usage of alloy materials in coin production
Introduction:
Going through thousands of years, the manufacturing of coins (minting/coining/coinage) have been one of the most polished product of mankind. One of the earliest recorded standardized coins was made by the Roman Empire, consisting of gold, silver and bronze. Now in the modern age, coins are made with alloys (solids made up of a base metal and other elements), with the exception of bullion coins which are made up of precious metal (Gold, palladium, platinum and silver) and kept as a store of value or an investment, instead of day-to-day use.

Figure 1: Gold Bullion coins of the United States of America
Coins used for day-to-day use are usually subjected to many thermal and physical abuse, for example; coins left in the car under the hot sun and then cooled when the air-conditioning are turned to the maximum or coins accidentally left in clothes that will go through a lot of physical punishment through the washing machine. Thus, coins must be made so that it can withstand thermal and physical abuse as well as a set of criteria.

Coin Composition Criteria
In the modern age, coins are usually made from a base material of copper or nickel, followed by a mixture of brass, iron and chromium. Some coins like the 10 cent and 5 cent of Malaysia’s 3rd series coins are made up of stainless steel, its exact composition not publicized for security reasons.

Figure 2: Malaysia’s 3rd series coins
During the course of choosing the material to make the coins, the material must fulfill all of the following pre-requisite as a minimum;
1) The materials used must be ductile and soft enough to allow design to be i...

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...lled. The stamps will be inspected and any imperfect products will be taken out and melted down.
The stamp used is called the master die which has a negative imprint of the design that will be stamped onto the “Engyo”. It is also important that when the alloys used for the coin must be softer than the master die and hard enough so that the imprints will last. In European countries, the euro coin uses 52-100 steel as the master die, which its exact composition is as follows;
Carbon, C 0.98 - 1.1%
Chromium, Cr 1.3 - 1.6%
Manganese, Mn 0.25 - 0.45%
Phosphorus, P 0.025% max
Silicon, Si 0.15 - 0.35%
Sulphur, S 0.025% max
Iron, Fe Remaining wt.%

Although it is hard enough to allow imprints onto the coin, it wears off after imprinting 100,000 thousand blanks, lower when the alloys are harder, thus several master dies are made to ensure continuous minting process.

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