Kevin,
I am attaching a spreadsheet, of a few war nickels, including three of PryorCreekJoe's "anomalous-reading" ones, that I had analyzed using XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) analysis. Please understand a couple a caveats -- 1.) the lab that did my analysis was NOT set up for "precious metal" analysis, as this purpose of this lab
was geared toward analyzing rocks for oil exploration purposes). As such, they did not have the expertise to know the proper calibrations, nor the proper voltages to set the machine at, to optimally analyze the nickels -- particularly for silver content (the silver content was not even evaluated at all, as they had no knowledge of how to do so given that the calibrations and voltages they typically use); 2.) the numbers here, showing the XRF readings/PPM values obtained, are not "actual metal content measurements," but are instead to be used in a relative sense. For instance, if one nickel shows 80,000 PPM copper, and another 160,000 PPM copper, then it can be said that the latter has roughly twice the amount of copper as compared to the first. But, you can't use the numbers in an ABSOLUTE sense, i.e. that the coin actually has 80,000 PPM copper. XRF does not measure the actual metallic composition per se -- it's accuracy is entirely dependent upon those calibrations and voltages I mentioned, and again, this lab DID NOT know how to properly calibrate, or set voltage for, this type of sample/these types of metals.
But, with that said, please see the spreadsheet. I included in the spreadsheet the analysis of four war nickels, (including their dates, and mint marks). The four nickels include one "proper-reading" nickel (which I call the "reference" nickel), and three outliers. The XRF readings for several metals contained within the nickels are included (again, though, we had no way at this lab to analyze for silver, unfortunately). The metals included in the spreadsheet are Fe (iron), Ni (nickel), Cu (copper), Zn (zinc), Mn (manganese), and Al (aluminum).
Some interesting things to note are --
1.) NONE of the samples included any Ni (nickel) -- as expected.
2.) The "proper-reading" nickel, (per VDI readings on both the CTX and Equinox), had NO iron, NO aluminum, as should have been the case; it only contained copper, zinc, and manganese (and, presumably, silver, which was not measured). Interestingly, there is no record that zinc was officially to be a part of the metallic mix for ANY of the war nickels, yet ALL FOUR of these samples showed zinc content, per the XRF analysis.
3.) Each of the three "anomalous-reading" nickels contained at least some aluminum -- and aluminum is not officially mentioned as having been used in war nickel metallic composition.
4.) One of the three "anomalous-reading" nickels contains what appears to be a substantial amount of iron, while the other three had zero iron -- and of course iron is not officially mentioned as having been used in war nickel metallic composition.
5.) The relative amounts of Cu, Zn and Mn vary WILDLY from sample to sample, with some having twice as much copper as others, some having twice as much Zn as others.
6.) ONLY the "proper-reading" or "reference" war nickel, seemed to have a "proper" amount of Mn, with the other three nickels showing only 1/3 to 1/5 the amount of Mn as the "reference" nickel.
7.) The MOST ANOMALOUS reading nickel -- which actually reaches "penny-range" VDI on both the CTX and Equinox, is the ONLY sample nickel that contained IRON. This sample ALSO shows more aluminum content than the other samples (and again, aluminum is ALSO not supposed to be present in war nickel metal compositions, based on official records).
Bottom line, it certainly appears that there was a WHOLE BUNCH of "funny business" that went on, at the U.S. Mint, during the war, which has not been well-documented (at least not "publicly). It's almost like they minted these nickels with whatever metals they could mix together at the time, based on availability, or lack thereof, during the war. SURELY, somewhere, there is some documentation on this, but I have yet to find it. I can't believe the Mint didn't have records of what they were doing, but I sure haven't ever seen this information in the public domain.
Anyway, here is the spreadsheet. Enjoy!
Steve
[attachment 362955 WarNickelSpreadsheetPic.jpg]