Talk:Coinage metals

Do These Count?
Do these count? Double sharp (talk) 07:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I think NO. This is only "self made" for element collectors, not as official coins. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 14:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That makes sense. However, their list might be useful to determine if the elements were ever previously used as coinage metals. Double sharp (talk) 02:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Sort (roughly) by usage
Would it make sense to sort the metals in the list by how common it is rather than alphabetically, or at least ensure that metals commonly in use in everyday coins, and metals used in one-time medals, are not mixed together? I think that'd be useful! 188.62.168.201 (talk) 22:52, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Metallium element series coins
I've removed an element list with the above header and a "reference" which was to a promo sales page. Vsmith (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Elements that have been used
From Metallium: Be, B, C, Mg, Al, P, S, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Se, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Cd, In, Sn, Sb, Te, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, Hf, Ta, Ir, Pt, Au, Hg, Tl, Pb, Bi, U (the uranium one is alas not offered for sale).

The missing ones are H, He, Li, N, O, F, Ne, Na, Si, Cl, Ar, K, Mn, Ge, As, Br, Kr, Rb, I, Xe, Cs, W, Re, Os, Th. (I'm not counting any non-primordials; I'm not counting Pu either because it's impractical and there exist by now only traces of primordial 244Pu). These are mostly the gases (for which "striking" is hard to define) and the alkali metals (where the reactivity is a very serious problem). Discounting them, the missing ones are Si (privately struck Ni-Si alloys have been used); Mn (present in some US circulating coins, but not pure Mn, I think); Ge (never heard of it being used), As (ditto), Br (this would have to be like the Hg "coin", with liquid mercury or bromine sloshing inside), I (never heard of it being used), W (apparently a few private demos have been done), Re (ditto), Os (never heard of it being used), and Th (now this would be interesting, but I've never heard of it)! Double sharp (talk) 06:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Rhenium has since been done. Double sharp (talk) 14:30, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Classical Coinage-Metals
Maybe, we should mention that the the classic coinage-metals (copper, silver, and gold) all com from electrum:

Electrum was a popular coinage-metal until people discovered that it is a natural alloy of the 4 components of copper, silver, gold, and other. Gold, silver, and copper stick together because of their chemical properties. After we discovered that electrum is an alloy, we made coins from the componet-metals, e.g. copper, silver, gold.

Coins can be made of any metals. Nowadays, precious-metal coins can be made of platnum-group metals or coins can be made of steel, aluminum, et cetera. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.233.65 (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Requirements for Coin Metals
All the information in this section makes sense, but do we have a source for any of it?

Dkallen78 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Random thought on metal usage...
So, I took a stab at finding examples of tin coins... And found some annoying fine print, and had an observation to make:
 * Tin comes in an assortment of alloys (tin-zinc, tin-lead, possibly more), and absent more detail, I'm not inclined to trust a coin advertised as "Tin" to contain more tinthan a modern copper penny has copper. That leaves me in a very poor spot to suggest examples of any specific metal use in coins, really.
 * The couple zinc coins I did expressly look at were from the early 1940s - ie, WWII era, when world trade was in a bad way - from that, I think it's reasonable to conclude that when making coins, there are occasions where you might use the metal you have available rather than the metal you want.

For what it's worth. 174.51.68.20 (talk) 05:54, 1 March 2022 (UTC)


 * There are numerous examples of tin coins. I'll add a few examples. Nautilator (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

What Counts?
I think the Element Series subsection needs to be removed, because those are element samples, as opposed to numismatic items. Comments/preferences?

I'd also like to know if anybody has any input as to what should count for this page. Do we include currencies? Trade tokens? Medals? All are numismatic items. If yes, I can add a lot more entries to the page. If no, then references to things like notgeld, the uranium medal, etc, ought to be removed because they are private issues. Nautilator (talk) 14:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)