Missing Clad Layer Type Set
By the early 1960s the market price of silver had increased sufficiently to force the US Treasury and US Mint to begin looking for an alternative to producing our silver coinage in something other than the long standing standard of 90% silver alloyed with 10% copper. The powers that be settled on a sandwich style clad planchet consisting of two outer layers of 75% copper alloyed with 25% nickel wrapped around a solid copper center. Beginning in 1965 the dime and quarter began production using this new planchet. The half-dollar would follow in 1971 after an interim clad production using planchets consisting of two outer layers of 80% silver alloyed with 20% copper bonded to a central core of 20.9% silver alloyed with 79.1% copper. When the one-dollar denomination was reintroduced in 1971 with the Eisenhower Dollar, coins intended for circulation used the now standard clad planchet configuration. The Ike was ultimately unsuccessful in circulation and was replaced in 1979 with the smaller diameter Susan B. Anthony Dollar. The SBA was also struck to the same clad standards. |
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As mentioned above the Kennedy half-dollars of 1965 through 1970 used a special clad formula that resulted in an overall 40% silver content. With an inner core of 20.9% silver alloyed with 79.1% copper a coin missing one of its outer layers does not reveal a bright copper core but a silver alloy close to the outer core in color. These are not as dramatic but are clad layer missing coins. This clad planchet configuration was revised for the 40% silver collector's editions of our bicentennial coinage of 1975 – 1976. Since these were not struck for circulation and packaged for sale directly to collectors they are not known missing clad layers and are thus not included here. |
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The small size Susan B. Anthony small dollar was a failure in replacing the dollar bill. One of the reasons given was it was too close to the quarter in both size and color. Thus the US Mint again experimented on a new clad alloy to solve the color issue. The new golden dollar (similar to the Canadian Loon Dollar) clad configuration has outer layers of 77% copper alloyed with 12% zinc, 7% manganese and 4% nickel. All this bonded to a central core of pure copper. The resulting coin was the Sacagawea Dollar. It was no more successful than the Anthony dollar! Call us crazy here at the asylum but it seems to us we should take another page from the Canadian rule book and eliminate the paper dollar if we ever want a metal dollar to circulate. |
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Finally, in 1982 the cost of the copper in the cent had exceed its face value. The US Mint developed a copper plated zinc planchet (some call it copper clad) that went into production in mid-1982. From time to time one these special planchets manufactured outside of the US Mint arrives without its copper plating (cladding if you wish), gets struck and released to circulation. |
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This has been an interesting and challenging set to assemble. The larger the denomination the tougher the coins were to locate and typically the more pricey. I hope you have learned a little about these eye popping errors and enjoyed your visit here. |
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