The Portland daily press., 1896-12-05
MAKING CENTS OF ALUMINIUM.
Test at the Mint to See if Such Thing
Is Practicable.
(Phladelphia Press

In the short period that will elapse before
Congress convenes again in December Sc
ries of interesting experiments in coinage
will be conducted at the mint in this city.
Metals and alloys heretofore untried for the
purpose will be tested and stamped into
token coins. Their availability as substi-
tutes for the alloys of which the minor
coins-nickels and cents-are now made will
be ascertained and samples submitted to
Congress.
OF all the countless possible alloys to be
obtained from copper, tin, nickel and alum
mum in different combinations, perhaps
fifteen or twenty may be found fairly salts
factory. 1t is possible that one or two of
these may advantageously be brought into
use for general coinage. No fault has been
found with the pr esent cent and five cent
pieces The experiments are merely ordered
to keep In touch with the times and to gain
knowledge of resources. The Philadelphia
mint, while having no regular experiment
al department, is well equipped to make
the tests.
Aluminium, which has never yet found a
Mace In the currency of any nation, is to
Be worked up into trial coin. 1t is also to
be given a chance in new alloys. ALUMNI
mum is a metal of which but little has been
known until recently, and it has been found
useful in so many ways that popular
idea prevails that it would be good for coins.
Chief among its advantages would be its
very light weight Cents made of it could
be readily distinguished from coins of the
same size by this remarkable ightness
alone.
DIR. D. K, futile, the chief refner at the
Mint, who knows all about the properties of
metals, Is somewhat skeptical. however, as
tn whether aluminium will come out of the
proposed tests with flying co1ors. 1t is ex-
ternely difficult to anneal, and when heated
will suddenly run like butter instead of be-
coming plastic. There would be trouble in
rolling it into the long strips from which
disks are cut preparatory to stamping. VI
course 1t can be worked, but not with suffi-
Gent ease and rapidity to make it practical
BILE for coming on q large scale.
Pure nickel has recently been coined In
Switzerland, but it has been found just as
difficult to handle as aluminium, though for
a different reason. Such great heat is neces-
sary to bring it into condition for coming
that the operation is slow and expensive.
While pure nickel coin might satisfactorily
he made in the minis of Switzerland it does
not follow that the same could be true at
the Philadelphia mint, which is called upon
to turn out fifty times as many five cent
pieces as the minis Of that country, ana
could not spare the time to work over them.
The five-cent coin now in use contains on
" % per cent. nickel, the remaining 10 per
cent being copper. Nickel, more than any
other metal has the property of giving Its
color to an alloy. Even an alloy of 80 per
rent of copper and 10 per cent of nickel will
be nearly white. The advantage of using a
sreater proportion of nickel in the fve-cent
piece is therefore not apparent, especially
IA more than % per cent. of it makes the al
10y refractory.
The experiments at the mint will include
different com binations of nickel, copper and