ave you ever stood in front ofa vending ‘machine, pumping in your change, and the machine ust kept spitting out one dime, unt you realized that it was a Canadian dime? Why can't you use Canadian coins in American vending machines, and vice versa? And how do vending machines distn- ‘uish between real money and fake money? What are our coins made of? Are nickels made of nicke!? These questions and many ‘more willbe answered as we examine the captivating chemistry of coins! Early cash Metalic money has been around for thou sands of years, wile paper money has only been popular fora few hundred years. The first coins were worth ther face value of vhat- ver precious metal they were made trom. Today, all coins are deliberately made o be 44 ChemMatters, APRIL 2007 the captivating chemistry Ins By Brian Robrig worth Jess than ther face value, so as to ‘prevent them from being melted down and the metas recovered and sold. Alcon were ‘originally made from gold, ser, and copper, ang these elements are stl referred to as the ‘coinage metals. The drachma and denarus, hich were widespread in Greek and Roman times, were composed of sive. The aureus, {gold coin, was also popular. Alloys ‘Although some ancient coins were sometimes made from pure metas, today all cons intended for ccuaton are made trom alloys. An alloy is a homogeneous mixture of {wo oF more elements, one of which must be hitpuichemistryorgleducation/chemmatters htm ‘a metal, There are numerous advan tages to using alloys. Alloys typically are harder, more durable, and more corrosion resistant than the pure metals by themselves, Pure gold and silver, for example, are very soft and would not hold up tothe wear and tear that circulated coins experience. Even the ancients were well aware ofthe advantages of alloys, as bronze was a common material used to make coins. The development of bronze was so important that an entire historical, era—the Bronze ‘Age—was named init honor. The bronze alloy used to make coins today is typically com- posed of 95% ‘copper, 4% tn, and 1% zn