Magnetic coins

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steinslots
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Magnetic coins

Post by steinslots »

This is old news really but the Royal Mint has announced that all new coins will now contain some iron in the alloy material so they will all be sticking to coin mechanism magnets (on machines which take new currency).
I remember when Stein Slots was in it's heyday some people didn't realise that new 1's & 2's were magnetic and I'd frequently get machines coming in which "takes some coins but not others - can't work out why".

These are likely to affect "Mars" and "Coin Controls" electronic coin acceptors too.
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JC
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Re: Magnetic coins

Post by JC »

As you say Carl, old news indeed, particularly in the case of 1p and 2p coins - even the new 5p and 10p coins have been in circulation for a couple of years now. But where did you get your information about ferrous content in ALL coins? I've just spent an hour searching for confirmation and can't find anything. I operate quite a few machines on 20p and 50p, mostly using S1 mechs - a change to steel coins, and the subsequent additional thickness would present me with a serious problem.

Jerry
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bandito
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Re: Magnetic coins

Post by bandito »

I have a Jennings governor converted from old shillings to the new ten pence piece. I noticed that a lot of coins started to reject for no reason. I never had a problem before......I soon realised that all the rejected coins were the latest design 10p's and have a metallic content! So the early style 10p coins played fine, but the new style were being pulled over by the magnet. A small adjustment and all play ok now. Do the magnet test and see for yourself? Anyone else notice this problem? Maybe machines converted from us quarters 25c to latest 10p's With magnets still in place? !PUZZLED! This may have been mentioned before if I recall.........
steinslots
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Re: Magnetic coins

Post by steinslots »

According to the Royal Mint website it says:
"As a result of the rising price of base metals, the composition of 1p and 2p coins was changed from bronze to copper-plated steel in 1992. Since then all 1p and 2p coins intended for circulation have been struck in copper-plated steel, with the exception of a quantity of 1998-dated 2p coins which were produced in the traditional bronze. Likewise, the composition of 5p and 10p coins was changed from
cupro-nickel to nickel-plated steel in Sep 2011. Plated steel coins have the same weight and diameter as those issued in the traditional alloys but their steel core makes them magnetic".

To answer your query Jerry, I found a very informative technical article from Cromptons, who (as you probbably know) make the traditional coin pushers and flip a coin machines, this covers the technical problems encountered by the new coins: http://www.cromptons-spares.co.uk/technical.html

Carl
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JC
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Re: Magnetic coins

Post by JC »

steinslots wrote:According to the Royal Mint website it says:...............
Yes, I'd already read that.
steinslots wrote:To answer your query Jerry........
Well, actually it doesn't (I'd read it a couple of years ago anyway). In your original post you stated:
steinslots wrote:Royal Mint has announced that all new coins will now contain some iron in the alloy material ....
But it appears it only applies to 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins - which we all knew about anyway!
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