Numismatic definitions
Like most fields of expertise, numismatics has its own lingo. Find the numismatic definition of a term by entering it in the field below.
Zinc
Metallic element, chemical symbol Zn, widely used, with copper, as a constituent of brass, although it was not isolated until the eighteenth century. Alloyed with copper to form tombac, it was used for Canadian 5 cent coins (1942-43) and, coated on steel, it was used for American cents (1943). Zinc was used for emergency coinage in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany (1915-18) and in Germany and German-occupied countries during the Second World War. Since then alloys of copper, nickel and zinc have been used for coinage in Eastern Europe, and an alloy of zinc with titanium has been developed in the 1970s as a potential substitute for bronze in subsidiary coinage.
