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TANTALUM COINAGE?Alan Luedeking writes: "I noted with interest Andy Lustig's tongue-in-cheek suggestion of using tantalum for coins. A few years ago I did a laser alignment training for Cabot Corp in Pennsylvania where tantalum is 'manufactured' and was gifted with a small piece as a keepsake. It was then 50 times the price of silver. Tantalum, which sounds like something out of Star Trek, is a very interesting metal. It was first isolated in 1802. It is much harder than the hardest steel while still malleable, more stainless by several orders of magnitude than the most stainless of stainless steels, is non-magnetic, and superconductive when supercooled. It is more conductive than silver (but less than gold) and is very heavy, just a few places left of gold on the periodic table. It also has an incredibly high melting point, just about 3000 degrees Celsius. It is scarce-- mined only in the United States, South Africa, Germany and Russia as far as I know, and is used to make the jacket on the head of anti-tank missiles. The cone-shaped head of the missile has a tiny inverted cone in the tantalum tip which "implodes" outward upon hitting the tank, concentrating a massive force on a tiny area, thereby opening a small hole in the tank's armor plating. The rest of the missile body then squeezes on through and explodes inside the tank -- simple! Now this would make some cool coins, but I'm afraid the dies to strike tantalum planchets would have to be ultra hard and be exceedingly expensive! But, I believe I heard once that somebody did make a medal in tantalum, I think in Britain, but I may be wrong."Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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