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vatican medals! dont know what they are madeof....

Started by ant,

6 posts in this topic

ant

ant

Posted
Posted

but they seem like plastic untill you drop them then they make a sound kinda in between alum & copper. i still like them though.

 

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Conder101

Conder101

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If they were gilt bronze they wouldn't "seem like plastic", too heavy. I'm wondering about a gilt white metal alloy such as a tin/zinc pewter alloy with possibly some aluminum or magnesium in the mix to make it lighter.

 

It's really hard to make any kind of an informed guess without weights and specific gravity.

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Conder101

Conder101

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A great example of how it is impossible to measure the thickness of a coin or medal. If you use those figures to get a rough density figure your answer ranges between 14.3 and 16.3 Somewhere between Palladium and Ruthenium (12.02 and 12.41 respectively) and Tantalum (16.65). The closest commonly used coinage metal would be 900 fine gold at 17.16

 

On the other hand if you ignore the math and just go by rules of thumb, you have pieces just a little smaller in diameter than a quarter yet heavier than a silver quarter. That would tend to indicate that the density would have to be in the 9 to 11 range.(Clad quarter 5.67 grams density is 8.92, silver quarter 6.25 grams density is 10.34) So I think we can ignore the "Seems like plastic" comment, these are obviously too heavy to be a light weight alloy. The sound comment is probably because the sound is being dominated by the thin outer areas and not the mass of the entire medal.

 

From all the new data I would probably have to agree with Hoot, gilt bronze. A gilt lead based alloy would fit the weight ad density figures a little better but would have a dull thud of a ring. Not like what was originally described.

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ant

ant

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wow i wish i could record the sound :) and great info there conder !

 

i found this on the side (where the coin touches its holder). might a say! YUCK

 

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