This list is incomplete you can help by adding missing items. For example, in India some coins have been made from a stainless steel that contains 82% iron, 18% chromium, and many other countries that have minted coins that contain metals now worth nearly the coin face-value, are experimenting with various steel alloys.Ĭhemical elements used in circulating coins In the 21st century with the prices of both copper and nickel rising, it has become more common to experiment with various alloys of steel, often stainless steel. Cupronickel has a silver color, is hard wearing and has excellent striking properties, essential for the design of the coin to be pressed accurately and quickly during manufacture. This problem has led to nearly the end of use for a common base metal alloy for everyday coinage in the 20th century, called cupronickel, with varying proportions of copper and nickel, most commonly 75% Cu 25% Ni. For similar reasons, American pennies (cents) were once made of copper alloys, but since 1982 have been made of copper-plated zinc. Modern British pennies are now made of copper-plated steel. Pre-1992 British pennies were made of 97% copper but as of 2008, based on the price of copper, the value of a penny from this period is 1.5 new-pence. This leads to the possibility of smelters taking coins and melting them down for the scrap value of the metal. When minting coins, especially low denomination coins, there is a risk that the value of metal within a coin is greater than the face value. Some metals like manganese have occasionally been used in coins, but suffer from making the coins too hard to take an impression well (or metals apt to wear out stamping machines at the mint). Achieving this goal necessitates the use of base metal alloys. For example, a coin may be in circulation for up to 30 years, and so must have excellent wear resistance and anti- corrosion properties. Requirements for a coinage metal Ĭoins that are intended for circulation have some special requirements based on the conditions they will encounter. In general coins intended for circulation must have metal values considerably less than their face values, for reasons discussed below. Coins not intended for circulation or for intrinsic value have also been made experimentally using an even larger variety of metals, since they function as fiat money. Precious metals are always used in bullion coins and some collectable coins. However, there are many more, even for coins made from intrinsically precious metals. The Persian coins were also very well known in the Persian and Sassanids era. However, the Persian daric was the first gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos, (From Ancient Greek σίγλος, Hebrew שֶׁקֶל ( shékel)) represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the Achaemenid Persian Empire which has continued till today. These first coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring pale yellow mixture of gold and silver that was further alloyed with silver and copper. ![]() Since that time, coins have been the most universal embodiment of money. Ancient India in circa 6th century BC, was one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world. Gold, silver and bronze or copper were the coinage metals of the ancient world, and most medieval coins.Īll western histories of coins begin invention at some time slightly before or after 700 BC, in Aegina Island, or, according to others, in Ephesus, Lydia, 650 BC. Historically, most coinage metals (or alloys) are from the three nonradioactive members of group 11 of the periodic table: copper, silver and gold, the copper usually being augmented with tin and often other metals to form bronze. In general, because of problems caused when coin metals are intrinsically valuable as commodities, there has been a trend in the 21st century toward use of coinage metals of only the least exotic and expensive types. Some of these elements would make excellent coins in theory (for example, zirconium), but their status as coin metals is not clear. The term is not perfectly defined, however, since a number of metals have been used to make "demonstration coins" which have never been used to make monetized coins for any nation-state, but could be. ![]() The coinage metals comprise, at a minimum, those metallic chemical elements which have historically been used as components in alloys used to mint coins.
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