Unknown copper...

[Crispin]

This one has me really puzzled. Found in Virginia Beach near Chesapeake Bay but on dry land. Weighs 25.22g.



Nitric Acid test:

 

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[mcl]

Well Crispin, I am afraid I can't identify your object but I can alert you to a huge discrepancy in the characteristics you reported. I know you don't like to be razzed, so let me just state that I'm here to be helpful, and I'd like you to please take a moment to consider the following issues.

I propose that that one of the following is true:

a) This item is not copper.
b) This item does not weigh approximately 25.22 grams.
c) Both a and b are true.
d) You made a mistake somewhere along the line (typo(s) in your post, misread the scale, etc)

Now my personal opinion is that option b is the most likely of the bunch, by my supposition that your scale is irreparably broken. I will now present "napkin math" to demonstrate why I think this is the case.

To begin, I noticed that you said the item is copper, and I have assumed for the purposes of these calculations that when you say "copper" you mean "99.99% pure copper". However, I will just note that the conclusions I will make are even more accurate if the item's material is an alloy of copper (e.g., brass or bronze), and you will be able to confirm that yourself if you like. In any case, assumption #1 is: the item is made of copper.

Next, I saw that you included a modern U.S. quarter as a comparison object in your pictures. This is actually an extremely helpful reference object in this case, which I will explain in a moment. But first, I will just note that, by my observations of your photos, the quarter and your item appear to be of the same depth, depending on how you want to describe it (i.e., the distance they extend upwards toward the sky from the carpet in the background).

Now lets talk about the properties of a modern U.S. quarter for a moment. It has a mass of 5.670 grams, according to Wikipedia. In addition, its composition is 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. This means it is almost entirely copper, so if we can figure out the difference between the weight by volume of this cupronickel alloy and pure copper, we can estimate the weight of your unidentified piece of copper by figuring out how many quarters can fit into its volume. This is easily done using your top-down photograph, because if the depth of the quarter and your piece are the same (which appears to be roughly the case), then all we need to account for are the width and height of the two objects. SO.. napkin math:

Pure copper weighs about 560 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Nickel weighs 555 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Therefore, the weight by volume for the quarter is:

(560 * 0.9167) + (555 * 0.0833) = 559.5835 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

If we now divide the weight of pure copper by the weight of the alloy, we proportional weight:

560 / 559.5835 = 100.0744%, after carrying the decimal.

Now, the question remains: how many quarters could fit into your unidentified copper item? One way to figure out is just see for yourself:



Somewhat more than one quarter fit into your item. Now this interesting but a much more accurate way is to figure out how many pixels are subtended by the quarter, compared to the number of pixels subtended by your object. This is easy to do: fill in both objects with flat black, and let the computer count the number of pixels within:



After doing this, we find that the mystery item subtends 811,693 pixels, whereas the quarter subtends only 564,109. Some division tells us that:

811693 / 564109 = 1.4388 quarters could fit inside the volume of your unidentified item.

Now, the weight of 1.4388 quarters is:

5.67 grams * 1.4388 = 8.1579 grams (note that I am truncating decimals here but including them on my end so as not to have rounding errors).

Next we have to adjust that weight, because we know that pure copper weighs slightly more. We use our adjustment value figured earlier.

8.1579 * 1.000744 = 8.1646 grams after adjusting.

Now lastly, we must consider that there is a raised ridge on the reverse side of your object, so some weight there probably needs to be accounted for. I'm going to give a way liberal estimate and guess that 25% of the object's weight is contained in that ridge, and we only see 75% of it in the photo. So, after doing napkin math and accounting for the weight of that ridge, we find that the objects weighs closer to:

8.1646 * 1.3333 = 10.8861 grams.

So what I'm saying is that, if the item truly is made of copper, then it should weigh approximately 10.8861 grams, given its volume. Assuming that it is actually copper, then your scale is broken, because it read 25.22 grams, which is more than twice the expected mass.

However, there is another option. What if it isn't actually copper but it really does weigh 25.22 grams as read by the scale? Well, since we know the weight by volume if it was truly made of copper, we can do some more napkin math to see what materials would weigh 25.22 grams at that volume. To do this, we first divide the weight read by the scale by the weight of the object if it were made of copper:

25.22 / 10.8861 = 2.3167

Then, we multiply the weight by volume of pure copper by that obtained value and obtain:

560 * 2.3167 = 1297.3567 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

My previous estimations may have been a bit fuzzy, so giving ourselves a buffer zone of +/- 10%, we find a range for the weight of 1167.6211-1441.5074 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Now, of the most common metals, the following metals are the only ones that fall in that range, and, in fact, are the only ones that even come close:

Gold = 1205 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]
Tungsten = 1205 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]
Platinum = 1340 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

However, judging by the degraded condition of your piece, gold and platinum definitely can't be true, and tungsten seems highly unlikely.

So in conclusion, it seems likely that your scale has died of dysentery.

-mcl

 

[Crispin]

Well Crispin, I am afraid I can't identify your object but I can alert you to a huge discrepancy in the characteristics you reported. I know you don't like to be razzed, so let me just state that I'm here to be helpful, and I'd like you to please take a moment to consider the following issues.

I propose that that one of the following is true:

a) This item is not copper.
b) This item does not weigh approximately 25.22 grams.
c) Both a and b are true.
d) You made a mistake somewhere along the line (typo(s) in your post, misread the scale, etc)

Now my personal opinion is that option b is the most likely of the bunch, by my supposition that your scale is irreparably broken. I will now present "napkin math" to demonstrate why I think this is the case.

To begin, I noticed that you said the item is copper, and I have assumed for the purposes of these calculations that when you say "copper" you mean "99.99% pure copper". However, I will just note that the conclusions I will make are even more accurate if the item's material is an alloy of copper (e.g., brass or bronze), and you will be able to confirm that yourself if you like. In any case, assumption #1 is: the item is made of copper.

Next, I saw that you included a modern U.S. quarter as a comparison object in your pictures. This is actually an extremely helpful reference object in this case, which I will explain in a moment. But first, I will just note that, by my observations of your photos, the quarter and your item appear to be of the same depth, depending on how you want to describe it (i.e., the distance they extend upwards toward the sky from the carpet in the background).

Now lets talk about the properties of a modern U.S. quarter for a moment. It has a mass of 5.670 grams, according to Wikipedia. In addition, its composition is 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. This means it is almost entirely copper, so if we can figure out the difference between the weight by volume of this cupronickel alloy and pure copper, we can estimate the weight of your unidentified piece of copper by figuring out how many quarters can fit into its volume. This is easily done using your top-down photograph, because if the depth of the quarter and your piece are the same (which appears to be roughly the case), then all we need to account for are the width and height of the two objects. SO.. napkin math:

Pure copper weighs about 560 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Nickel weighs 555 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Therefore, the weight by volume for the quarter is:

(560 * 0.9167) + (555 * 0.0833) = 559.5835 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

If we now divide the weight of pure copper by the weight of the alloy, we proportional weight:

560 / 559.5835 = 100.0744%, after carrying the decimal.

Now, the question remains: how many quarters could fit into your unidentified copper item? One way to figure out is just see for yourself:

View attachment 1213259

Somewhat more than one quarter fit into your item. Now this interesting but a much more accurate way is to figure out how many pixels are subtended by the quarter, compared to the number of pixels subtended by your object. This is easy to do: fill in both objects with flat black, and let the computer count the number of pixels within:

View attachment 1213260

After doing this, we find that the mystery item subtends 811,693 pixels, whereas the quarter subtends only 564,109. Some division tells us that:

811693 / 564109 = 1.4388 quarters could fit inside the volume of your unidentified item.

Now, the weight of 1.4388 quarters is:

5.67 grams * 1.4388 = 8.1579 grams (note that I am truncating decimals here but including them on my end so as not to have rounding errors).

Next we have to adjust that weight, because we know that pure copper weighs slightly more. We use our adjustment value figured earlier.

8.1579 * 1.000744 = 8.1646 grams after adjusting.

Now lastly, we must consider that there is a raised ridge on the reverse side of your object, so some weight there probably needs to be accounted for. I'm going to give a way liberal estimate and guess that 25% of the object's weight is contained in that ridge, and we only see 75% of it in the photo. So, after doing napkin math and accounting for the weight of that ridge, we find that the objects weighs closer to:

8.1646 * 1.3333 = 10.8861 grams.

So what I'm saying is that, if the item truly is made of copper, then it should weigh approximately 10.8861 grams, given its volume. Assuming that it is actually copper, then your scale is broken, because it read 25.22 grams, which is more than twice the expected mass.

However, there is another option. What if it isn't actually copper but it really does weigh 25.22 grams as read by the scale? Well, since we know the weight by volume if it was truly made of copper, we can do some more napkin math to see what materials would weigh 25.22 grams at that volume. To do this, we first divide the weight read by the scale by the weight of the object if it were made of copper:

25.22 / 10.8861 = 2.3167

Then, we multiply the weight by volume of pure copper by that obtained value and obtain:

560 * 2.3167 = 1297.3567 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

My previous estimations may have been a bit fuzzy, so giving ourselves a buffer zone of +/- 10%, we find a range for the weight of 1167.6211-1441.5074 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]. Now, of the most common metals, the following metals are the only ones that fall in that range, and, in fact, are the only ones that even come close:

Gold = 1205 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]
Tungsten = 1205 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]
Platinum = 1340 lbs/ft[SUP]3[/SUP]

However, judging by the degraded condition of your piece, gold and platinum definitely can't be true, and tungsten seems highly unlikely.

So in conclusion, it seems likely that your scale has died of dysentery.

-mcl

Bravo, Bravo, indeed... I am very impressed with:
a. the science you used to come to your conclusion
b. the technology you included to come to your conclusions
c. the time it took to come to your conclusion
d. The overall intelligence and knowledge needed to posit such a conclusion
e. All of the above.

I am going to go with all of the above. However, I think the problem in your logic stems from your assumption of the thickness of said unknown metal. I hope these pictures help clear things up for you in that regards:



I would also like to use this as a reference for quarter weight:
The United States Mint About Us

In regards to statement of this being copper: The nitric acid test clearly shows that this is a copper based alloy. It is very possible that it is brass; however, the feeling of it in my hand was that it was closer to copper. I could easily be wrong about this.

Lastly, now a days, scales don't die of dysentery. It is very easy to put scales in the hospital, place an IV, and keep them hydrated until the cause can be found and treated. In the US, very few people die of dysentery. This is more a problem in third world countries where clean water and access to good medical care are extremely lacking.

Crispin

 

[tamrock]

Wow! Thanks for bringing all that to our attention

 

[Crispin]

Wow! Thanks for bringing all that to our attention

I am sorry. Did I say something that upset you? Don't get mad because you could not ID my find.

Your sarcasm is duly noted and documented. By all means, if anybody else wants to take up a one man comedy show, now would be the time...

 

[DCMetal]

Just a thought... at first glance it looks like a Medal (half of one) with a dead bolt pin lock mechanism. Good luck, looks like a tough one.