The Lightest of Collections: Aluminum Coins

Someone once said there are as many ways to collect as there are collectors. As the number of collectors has risen in the past few decades, that expression may not be as true as it once was. However, it can be said that there are certain different series upon which people focus, with some being much more popular than others. For example, the Mercury dimes? Yep, this has long been a collector favorite. Collections of aluminum coins, though? Probably much less popular. But taking a look at this lightweight metal may turn out to be an interesting endeavor. Let’s give it a try.

Elements such as copper, silver, and gold have all been known since ancient times. They have been used in making coins for at least a couple of thousand years. Aluminum, though – element 13 on the Periodic Table of the Elements – was only discovered in 1827. It would be another 60 years until the harnessing and use of electricity made it economically feasible to extract the metal from its bauxite ores in large quantities. Indeed, the late 1880s marked a transition time in which aluminum went from being a precious metal that was hard to refine to the workhorse metal it is today.

British and French Colonies

Curiously, it would be less than 20 more years until someone came up with the idea of aluminum coins. That someone apparently worked at the British Royal Mint since the 1907 1/2 penny pieces of British East Africa appear to be the first aluminum coins any nation or colony ever used. At the same time, the tiny denomination of 1/10 of a penny was made of aluminum and used in British West Africa. It’s tough to determine who collects them now precisely because they are aluminum, but there are plenty of collectors of world coins who do like to focus on those of former colonies.

Britain and France often seemed to be on a collision course when it came to one world-spanning project or another, and it was not too long before a series of French colonial coins came into being for the widespread French Empire. Pieces can be found from an array of French colonies that dot the Pacific, as well as several of them from the former colonies in Southeast Asia. And while such coins may have crossed paths with British colonial pieces back when sailors and world travelers got on or off the boat, as it were, something else they had in common is still in common today: they are always low-value, low-denomination coins.

Perceived Value

The idea of an aluminum coin being worth a lot might have come to pass if the metal hadn’t gone from hard-to-refine to amazingly cheap. With the development and patenting of what is called the Hall-Heroult Process in the late 1880s, aluminum became a cheap metal. Couple that rise in production with how light it feels in our hand – aluminum coins are the least dense of any – and folks get the idea that aluminum must not be worth much. It may sound childish, but in general, people like the idea of a coin having a certain heft to it. Gold certainly has that. Even silver is a pretty dense element. But aluminum? Nope, it apparently just doesn’t inspire the confidence we associate with value.

Other Nations and Colonies

Just because aluminum doesn’t connect with value in our minds does not mean that governments opted out of using it for coinage. Indeed, when it comes to low-value and low-denomination coins, the reverse seems to be the case. Italy is one nation that used plenty of aluminum as its lire went through some serious inflation and devaluation. Italy has a rich history of beautiful artworks, some of which made it onto the later aluminum Italian lire coins, with the end result being a string of attractive designs.

Let’s not pick on Italy too much, though. There are plenty of other nations that have used aluminum for one or more of their coins. India and Bangladesh have some in the mix. South Korea, North Korea, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China have all issued some. And much closer to home is the oft-overlooked tiny French colony of St. Pierre and Miquelon, just off the coast of eastern Canada. There is a duet of 1-franc and 2-franc pieces from these windy islands that are dated 1948, which quite a few collectors of world coins try to get their hands on.

U.S. Aluminum

OK, it’s no big leap of logic to ask the question: did the United States ever issue any aluminum coins? The short answer is “no,” but it’s the longer answer that contains a story that has become a collector favorite and something of a legend. It seems that in 1974 the United States Mints in Philadelphia and Denver did indeed produce aluminum 1-cent pieces sporting the familiar image of Honest Abe, as records indicate that 1.4 million were coined – but never released. One apparently did make it out of the building in Denver, however, as a gift – an unauthorized and unsanctioned gift – to the assistant superintendent. It was his heir who tried to sell it, and the folks at the Secret Service stepped in and put a halt to it. One end result of the release of this single coin outside of the Mint is that, yes, there is now a lone aluminum piece that the collecting community can claim is valuable.

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 A Full Collection?

Trying to assemble a full collection of aluminum coins from all the nations and former colonies that have used them could be quite a challenge. We can definitely say this is a challenge most of us have not undertaken. But there are at least two advantages to focusing our collecting interests on aluminum. First, this will be the lightest collection we have ever assembled. Second, other than a U.S. aluminum 1-cent piece, this may qualify as the least expensive collection we can form. After all, plenty of aluminum pieces can be pulled from dealer bargain bins. It may be beyond the mainstream, but this type of collecting can be a lot of fun.