According to Shishkov/Muzalevsky, the alloy mark for the hammer & sickle is named: GSrM583-80. The gold weight in the H&S is 0.300 Grams, +/- 0.18 Grams. The Silver weight in the H&S is 0.041 Grams, +/- 0.002 Grams.
I didn't find ANY details to support the theory of copper in the H&S.
Good research Tal, thus if it wasn't an official alloy it wasn't done by the mint..it must be as Doug said, some sort of "cottage industry". But this seems hard to believe also. It seems as if it would be easier to say the order was lost or stolen than to be spotted with one of these copper H&S's and have a front tooth partially clad in gold :) maybe it was something that was tolerated but not enouraged?
Christian, are your OPW's with the copper hammer and sickles attached with rivets or bent prongs of some sort as Doug has mentioned?
Right..that wouldn't make sense. I think the logical conclusion would be that it was not done at the mint. Doug's story about the dental fillings makes the most sense.
Strange with the wide stretch of serial numbers, I wonder if the replacement was arranged "under the table" at one particular dentist? seems like it may have been done by more than a few people.
