did some reading the last few days.. I wanted to know who made/what was the 1st "aluminum" coin..., Knowing that the method for extracting aluminum was pattented in 1889 we pretty much eliminate any coins before that date.... the "claim" is the 1st was 1955 japenese yen... I Call BS the oldest aluminum coins I can find are the 1893 "so called dollars" minted for the Columbian expo (several types including some in brass as well) My question is does anyone know of any earlier (I know aluminum was actualy extracted as early as 1880 but I can find no earlier alum coins ) here's my 1893 "so called dollar" as an example
Heres a few from before 1890 https://en.numista.com/catalogue/in...dg=0-1890&m=45&f=&t=&w=&mt=&g=&se=&c=&wi=&sw=
Nice, but those are patterns, for circulation it's the East Africa 1907 1/10 penny https://www.mintageworld.com/media/detail/2549-the-first-aluminium-coin-of-the-world/#:~:text=I know u will see,Aluminium coin of the world. but the one I want is the 1868 US proof set
More on the aluminum proof set. http://news.coinupdate.com/experimental-aluminum-pattern-proof-set-1806/
Who said 1955 Japanese yen? There are a ton of aluminum coins from different countries from the World War 2 years.
that was the wiki answer lol the earliest I've managed to find at this point is 1793 british bermuda penny. That one surprises me as aluminum refining was in it's infancy (using a very dangerous and not overly reliable, acid reduction process) and considered more valuable then silver at that point
I saw that the original post was a souvenir token rather than a circulating coin so I thought patterns could count. By the year 1900, it seems there was a rather large number of nations which had been using it experimentally to strike pattern coins. I guess I felt it fell into the criterion.
The modern process for isolating metallic aluminum from its ore was discovered in 1886, and metallic aluminum became common and mass-produced afterwards. Pretty tough to come by aluminum coins or exonumia from before then. The 1868 set was produced at the time when aluminum was considered very valuable.
In 1884 the Washington Monument was capped with a cast aluminum capstone. Before being placed on the Monument, it was on display and tourists were encouraged to jump over it so they could claim "I jumped over the top of the Washington Monument."
Never heard about people being encouraged to just over it, but it was on display for some time in the Window of Tiffany's in NYC. When it was made and used on the Washington Monument, at 100 oz it was the largest object made of aluminum in the world.
I love aluminum coins. I think they are underappreciated and the high grade WWII era examples are definitely undervalued. It's a great area to collect. I actually have an Aluminum set for Hungary, including pattern issues: https://collectivecoin.com/Jaelus/l4IyH42Eq4GfrQdDxRlv Hungary started circulating aluminum coins in 1941, however, my earliest aluminum pattern is dated 1913 and it is Austrian.
@paddyman98 WoW!! $350K! That would set me for life as far as my retirement. How did he obtain this, and I wonder for how much??
