<VV> zinc penny

[Alan and Clare Wesson]

Ron wrote:

> They were fun because they were different and would be attracted by 
> magnets.

One of my favourite party tricks is to take a 1992 British penny, and then 
conceal about my person a 1995 one with a similar amount of patination and a 
similar appearance. I give a kid the 92 one and ask them to pick it up with 
a magnet. Of course they can't (it's a copper alloy).

Then I take the 92 penny off them, say some mumbo-jumbo and then put down 
the 95 one without them noticing it's a different one - and hey presto, the 
magnet picks it up. It's because they reduced the copper content in 93 or 94 
(presumably because there was a risk of the coin being worth more as scrap 
metal than as currency!) - but the kids never work it out.

It is one of the few little quizzes that I have set my own kids where I have 
had to tell them the answer (they were 8 and 9 when I did it with them) - 
usually they suss me out, but this time I had them completely. I even gave 
them both coins and told them I had put a spell on one of them so that it 
couldn't be picked up, and although they knew that was bullsh*t, by this 
age, they couldn't see the difference between the coins!

Now they irritate their friends by doing it to them...

Cheers

Alan