What Vdi Are Your Buffs & V Nics Coming In At?

[Happa54]

Wow... this post still has legs on it. So, 9 months after I posted this;

I'm quite proficient at the nickel finds now as time goes by. I dig all signals at 11,12,13,14. Below and above that I walk away. 

12/13 seems to be the hot TID but they also bounce around at 11 and 14. Dig em all. 

In case I didn't post this here.... over 300 nickels and V's, buffs and a war nickel in the past several months. The ratio is pretty good. 

Not to mention I dug a nice 18k gold ring and a gold buddha pendant off nickel signals. 

 

 

 

[steveg]

4 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Sorry for the 6 week delay in response.  I just found this thread.  (Wonder how much other good stuff I've missed....)

Absolutely I'm interested and applaud your dogged effort.  I have four rolls of Warnicks which I collected over the years (not from the ground) which I'm going to VID today with the Equinox 800.  I'll let you know what I find.

Besides the hyphotheses I've mentioned before (and not unique since I see some of the findmall posters coming up with the same speculation) is 'evolution' of composition while in the ground, and regional distribution (since you guys in OKC area are finding multiples).

Regarding the numismatic community being interested, there is no doubt in my mind they are.  They get excited about less likely/unusual anomolies than that.  Off metal strikes are not super rare.  I think they typically occur on a few coin basis (relatively speaking, I don't literally mean 'few'), though, rather than a moderately consistent fraction such as you have seen.  And as you note, it's something that doesn't get a lot of attention, probably because until recently it was difficult to determine.  As far as getting resistance when you first brought up the subject, this is natural.  For example, suppose some new person showed up here with such an idea.  They wouldn't immediately be congratulated -- readers would want more evidence.  And we know how metal detectors work, just from experience alone.  (Oh, wait, maybe we're experiencing deja vu. ?)

I wish I still worked with X-ray equipment.  I would have snuck a few of your specimens into lab.  (Shush.  Don't tell the gov'ment.)

I wish you still worked with the X-ray equipment also, LOL!  (and I won't tell!)  LOL!

I'll be interested in hearing what you find out when you run those war nicks with your EQX...

To me, this is fascinating!  I just wish I could get the coin community more "excited" about it; if they were less "skeptical" about this, they could definitely help to unravel the mystery...

Steve

[GB_Amateur]

5 hours ago, steveg said:

I'll be interested in hearing what you find out....

Didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but got through the first roll (40 coins).  Nothing of note yet.  Everything was 13 plus or minus.  But 160 to go and I only need one outlier to add to your mounting evidence.  More tomorrow.

 

 

[steveg]

WOW, GB_Amateur...40 so far, and ALL of them reading "like a nickel should?!"  

The mystery deepens...

Seve

[Cabin Fever]

For the life of me I still can’t find a Nickel in the wild outside of 12-13. I don’t know if it’s the Mode I run in (Park 1-Multi) my settings or just my Detector.. I didn’t keep track of my modern Nickels but I dug around 20 Buffalo and V Nickels with the Nox in 2018.  I dug 2 Shield Nickels and unlike others they did not bounce at all. Neither would come off 12. Shield Nickels are slightly smaller then the Nickels that came after them.

Depth did not seem to affect the numbers. Most of these coins were between 6 and 8 inches with a few including a Shield Nickel reaching up to 10 inches. (The 15” Coil is a Beast!)

I can get a small percentage of Nickels to flash outside of 12-13 when air testing if I wave them over the coil on edge  so I know it’s possible, just rare for my setup.

 Bryan

 

[Happa54]

10 hours ago, Cabin Fever said:

For the life of me I still can’t find a Nickel in the wild outside of 12-13. I don’t know if it’s the Mode I run in (Park 1-Multi) my settings or just my Detector.. I didn’t keep track of my modern Nickels but I dug around 20 Buffalo and V Nickels with the Nox in 2018.  I dug 2 Shield Nickels and unlike others they did not bounce at all. Neither would come off 12. Shield Nickels are slightly smaller then the Nickels that came after them.

Depth did not seem to affect the numbers. Most of these coins were between 6 and 8 inches with a few including a Shield Nickel reaching up to 10 inches. (The 15” Coil is a Beast!)

I can get a small percentage of Nickels to flash outside of 12-13 when air testing if I wave them over the coil on edge  so I know it’s possible, just rare for my setup.

 Bryan

 

I clearly remember digging a V on a 13/14 signal and a buff on a 11/12 signal. Several modern niks came in at these numbers as well but not many. In my area, any nik signal that is bouncing around within these 4 numbers but occasionally throwing off a 10 or 15 is a non-digger for me... but I will dig all numbers 11,12,13,14. Since honing in on these signals it has added to the excitement of just going after high conductors (silver, etc). More finds and satisfaction. It has been a game changer. 

[Cabin Fever]

I believe you.  It just hasn’t happened for me yet which has my curiosity up and I will keep trying..

I’m happy with the Equinox and it’s ability to find Nickels.  I would say I’m finding twice the number of Old Nickels that I did with my CTX or E-Trac. The Nox punches noticeably deeper on Nickels then FBS in my ground. I took at least 3 months off this season from detecting and still managed a decent number of them. 

Bryan

[GB_Amateur]

Finished air testing the 160 Warnick TID's with the Minelab Equinox 800.  I used the 11 inch coil, set up a 'platform' (all plastic) ~3.5 inches above the coil to facilitate repeatable tests with no rotation.  I ran in Park 1, gain of 16, recovery speed = 5, iron bias = 0.  I used my standard custom 5 tones which includes a nickel zone of 12-13, so I can hear 11's and 14's (different tones) separated from the 12-13.  I also watched the screen to see the ID's there, too.  I moved the coins back and forth across the DD intersection zone at a rate of a couple cycles per second, several cycles for each coin.  I did this directly over the center of the coil (attach point) but also about an inch towards the toe and an inch toward the heel of the coil.

The 160 nickels were all found in pocket change in the 1960's through the 1970's (and maybe a few from later decades).  Most were found in central Indiana.  All display the unattractive dark gray patina characteristic of Warnicks well circulated in commerce.

Really nothing too exciting here.  Most centered on 13 with both 12's and 14's (but these latter in the minority of the chirps).  About a dozen showed no 14's but did have some 11's.  Two or three stayed exclusively in 12-13.  About half dozen coins never showed a 12 and were 13-14 range consistently.  I checked the dates and mintmarks of the outliers and saw no pattern.  Ditto any wear or coloration differences.

One possible clue for Steve's study came when I decided to test the 6 nickels I found (buried) with my Eqx during 2018.  Five were consistent with the most common signals shown by the above tests.  However, one would occasionally show a TID of 15.  I don't remember any of the 160 non-MD find nickels showing a 15 but can't say for certain it never happened.

As many of you have experienced, Warnicks that come out of the ground tend not to show the dark gray patina but rather have a cleaner, whiter appearance.  The one Warnick that touched 15 had a reverse that was the cleanest of all six, but its obverse had some black scale staining (darker than the non-dug Warnicks).  I don't know if this appearance is connected with the 15 reading or not.

Sorry, Steve.  I would have liked to have found one of the high TID coins both to add to your case but also to just own one myself.  But hopefully these new data will somehow be useful in your quest to get an answer to this intriguing mystery.

[steveg]

GB_Amateur -- this is great data; NOT having any "odd-reading" war nickels is NOT a "failure," but adds mystery and intrigue to the issue.  WHY would my friend Joe, in northeast Oklahoma, dig SEVERAL of these "very odd-reading" nickels, but you checked 160 from pocket change, and found NONE that were "odd."

My first knee-jerk WOULD have been that somehow maybe being in the ground is altering the coins in such a way that they read different, but the XRF analysis showing different compositions suggests, at least, that there is more going on, than that...

HMM....

Steve

[GB_Amateur]

Steve, have you ever measured the weight of the oddball Warnicks?  In paricular the ones with Aluminum might show a significantly different weight than the norm (of course not guaranteed).  Obviously other factors (especially wear) will affect the weight.  If you find an anomalous weight I would be willing to weigh all of my 'normal' ones and produce a mass spectrum for comparison sake.

If you ever get around to having another XRF analysis (and if it's not too expensive to add some more specimens), ask them to XRF the other side of the coin (assuming they didn't already do that, averaging the two results...).  Also include a standard copper-nickel sample.  It would also be good to include a second normal Warnick to see what kind of variations show up.  All of this also helps show the uncertainty of the readings.  (One of my pet peaves of XRF analysis is that the few I've seen don't have an uncertainty associated with the values.)

As far as some of the comments on that Dankowski forum thread, I doubt the mint has any knowledge about this anymore.  Even if the planchets are the culprits, someone then might have known but that doesn't mean they recorded or reported it.  Further, as most know, the staffing of many organizations (companies, government agencies, etc.) changed during the war as people were re-assigned to positions which were thought to most advance the war effort.  Either the mint employees who did quality control or more likely the people (private company employees?) who were in charge of metal composition may have been less expert than one would expect.  Consider the mint denying that 1943 copper cents were made.  Yes, there was no official mintage and likely the higher ups (who responded to queries about the anomalies) were unaware, but it did happen.

Most are familiar with the 'Red Book' but Whitman has an entire series of a couple dozen "A Guide Book to..." publications (https://whitman.com/store/Inventory/Browse/Whitman-Books) which go way more into detail on the individual series.  I've been picking up used ones (some earlier editions) for quite cheap on the internet.  I recently got the Buffalo+Jefferson Nickel book and looked for composition variations of Warnicks.  Nothing that really helps your study, but there was a writeup regarding the motivation, experimentation, and eventual decision on what became the standard Cu-Ag-Mn values.  (I also have the Flying Eagle + Indian Head book and the Lincoln Cent book, the latter of which actually does talk about intended variations in the penny composition.  But that's a topic for another thread.)