On 13 Nov 2004 14:46:24 GMT, TomDeLorey wrote:

Interesting that they took such pains with the alloy but let the weight
drift. I suppose it must have been easier to control the fineness and
this also let them have more wiggly room with the weight. Although for
a
quarter .001 difference would have been the same as a .006 gram
differnce
which they obviously weren't very concerned about.


I think they were just trying to allow for the fact that the occasional
coins
did come light or heavy, but they were very strict on bulk tolerances.
They
weighed finished bags, allowing for the weight of the bag, of course,
and if
the entire bag consisted of all light or all heavy coins (if, for
example, a
strip had been rolled wrong) they melted it down and started over. Over
the
long run, people got fair weight coins.
.

TomDeLorey

That does make a lot of sense. As long as the weight variance for an
individual coin is low enough that people don't start weighing and
remelting the coins the individual weight would not be too critical.