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[Stargrasper]

But I do like the Two-Face idea, although Two-Face is usually depicted as using a silver dollar as his coin of choice, which are made of...  well, silver.

Don't be so sure...I haven't look into the specifics of the composition of every silver dollar nor the specific silver dollar Two-Face might have carried (besides it having two obverse sides)...but it's very common for coins not to have much, if any of a metal they were designed for in order to save cost.  Gold and silver coins?  Yeah...lots of them are actually gold or silver colored.  They may or not not even have a gold/silver plating.  They may just look like it and almost certainly aren't made of the metal anytime in the last hundred years.  It's just too expensive in the last century.  Silver and gold cost far too much to make a coin worth only one dollar.

Just to be clear, here's a more obvious example.  The penny.  Pre-1982, pennies had a different composition, namely, they were made of copper and are worth just over two cents.  Well, obviously you can't spend more to produce money than it's actually worth in the end.  So they changed the composition.  Pennies are now 97.5% Zn, 2.5% Cu.  At least they have copper in them.

[shadowform]

But I do like the Two-Face idea, although Two-Face is usually depicted as using a silver dollar as his coin of choice, which are made of...  well, silver.

Don't be so sure...I haven't look into the specifics of the composition of every silver dollar

Most use .77 troy ounces of silver.

nor the specific silver dollar Two-Face might have carried (besides it having two obverse sides)...

In the most recent incarnation of The Dark Knight, he uses a 1946 Liberty Dollar, improperly struck with with two faces (making it a worthwhile collectors item regardless), which is made from...  .77 troy ounces of silver.

but it's very common for coins not to have much, if any of a metal they were designed for in order to save cost.  Gold and silver coins?  Yeah...lots of them are actually gold or silver colored.  They may or not not even have a gold/silver plating.  They may just look like it and almost certainly aren't made of the metal anytime in the last hundred years.  It's just too expensive in the last century.  Silver and gold cost far too much to make a coin worth only one dollar.

The first silver dollar coins, the Continental Dollar, were minted from silver.  The 1804 silver dollars (oddly minted in 1834) are rare enough to be irrelevant and certainly worth more than a dollar, were 90% silver and 10% copper, making them closer to sterling silver.  The seated liberty dollar was minted from 1840 - 1873 and used this same ratio of metals, as did the Trade Dollar, Morgan Dollar, and Peace Dollar.  The Eisenhower and Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, the most recently minted dollar coins to have a silvery color, were 75% copper / 25% nickel and 91.6% copper / 8.3% nickel respectively, and are generally regarded simply as 'dollar coins' rather than 'silver dollars', like the later Sacagawea and Presidential dollars.

My parents used to collect coins.  I pick stuff up.

[Stargrasper]

My parents used to collect coins.  I pick stuff up.

Well, I'm glad somebody has picked up more details than me.

Somehow my actual area of expertise never seems to come up.

[RCIX]

My parents used to collect coins.  I pick stuff up.

Well, I'm glad somebody has picked up more details than me.

Somehow my actual area of expertise never seems to come up.

I'm hesitant to ask this, but... what IS your area of expertise?

[Stargrasper]

I'm hesitant to ask this, but... what IS your area of expertise?

You actually care?  It's kind of an odd field.  There's a reason it never comes up.

My area is musical instruments.  Specifically, I'm trained in musical instruments repair.  I know how to handle everything except strings.  So I can tell you a lot about instruments, their history, the manufacturers, how they're made, what they're made of, etc.  An example that's moderately related to this thread is nickel silver.  Some instruments (or parts anyway) are made of it.  It has no silver...and hardly any nickel.  It is a brass alloy of 70% Cu, 20% Zn, 10% Ni.  Btw, ratios will differ slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Aside from all that, I DO actually know plenty about actual maintenance and repair.

OP should mod nickel silver into the game and turn all his nickel into it.  Then make about a thousand instruments.  Any craft that isn't an instrument should be immediately melted until it's there's nothing but instruments.  Then build a city sized orchestra hall.

[G-Flex]

I usually mod white gold into the game (same proportion as in rose gold, but with nickel instead of copper). I figure that if dwarves can work nickel as well as they seem to be able to, then white gold isn't really out of their league, and it gives a legitimate use for the stuff.

[Kanddak]

What do you do with YOUR nickel?

I make it into blocks and pipe sections for magma pumps, and doors and hatches for controlling magma flow or securing magma-working areas.
I'm surprised no one has commented on nickel's magma-safety so far in this thread. In fact, we're on page 2 and no one's even used the word magma. I'm ashamed of you all.

OP should mod nickel silver into the game and turn all his nickel into it.

It's been in vanilla DF for ages. It was magma-safe too in 40d (so you could use copper and zinc to stretch your magma-safe nickel much farther), but isn't in 0.31. I had some fun learning that.

[RCIX]

I'm hesitant to ask this, but... what IS your area of expertise?

You actually care?  It's kind of an odd field.  There's a reason it never comes up.

My area is musical instruments.  Specifically, I'm trained in musical instruments repair.  I know how to handle everything except strings.  So I can tell you a lot about instruments, their history, the manufacturers, how they're made, what they're made of, etc.  An example that's moderately related to this thread is nickel silver.  Some instruments (or parts anyway) are made of it.  It has no silver...and hardly any nickel.  It is a brass alloy of 70% Cu, 20% Zn, 10% Ni.  Btw, ratios will differ slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Aside from all that, I DO actually know plenty about actual maintenance and repair.

OP should mod nickel silver into the game and turn all his nickel into it.  Then make about a thousand instruments.  Any craft that isn't an instrument should be immediately melted until it's there's nothing but instruments.  Then build a city sized orchestra hall.

Sure! i'm (almost) always interested in offbeat professions (no offense). Got any recommended reading about instruments? (Sorry about the thread-jacking, perhaps we should take this to PMs)

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Build nickel statue.
Melt nickel statue.
Repeat until blacksmith is legend.

[slink]

Well, I used to buy candy and pop with them.  One time I found a nickel that the pop machine would return if I used the change return lever after I bought the pop.  I don't know what was with that nickel, but I got free pop for almost a week before I couldn't stand not spending it on candy.  *sigh*  My long-range planning wasn't very good at that age.

Oh, but you meant nickel metal in the game.,   

I hardly ever use it unless there's a mandate requiring it.  In fact, until recently I never had much of a metal industry at all.  Goblinite was my main ore in 40d.  The lack of easily secured magma has hindered me in 0.31.x but now that I convert remains, cartilage, and nervous tissue into coke I am beginning to develop a little industry if only to use up some of the ore that is cluttering up my fortress.  My current fortress has piles of coal and iron.  I will eventually have thousands of iron bars cluttering up my fortress instead of iron ore in three, count them, three, colors (yellow, red, and grey).  Too bad there's no flux.

[shadowform]

Build nickel statue.
Melt nickel statue.
Repeat until blacksmith is legend.

Blacksmith IS legend.  He became legend making copper statues.  Other blacksmith is also legend, he became legend making copper crafts.  and I still have 1900 copper bars as well.

[Lord Shonus]

I usually mod white gold into the game (same proportion as in rose gold, but with nickel instead of copper). I figure that if dwarves can work nickel as well as they seem to be able to, then white gold isn't really out of their league, and it gives a legitimate use for the stuff.

Where did you get your information? Everything I've ever read states that "white gold" is more properly known as electrum, an alloy of gold and silver that already exists in the game.

[G-Flex]

I usually mod white gold into the game (same proportion as in rose gold, but with nickel instead of copper). I figure that if dwarves can work nickel as well as they seem to be able to, then white gold isn't really out of their league, and it gives a legitimate use for the stuff.

Where did you get your information? Everything I've ever read states that "white gold" is more properly known as electrum, an alloy of gold and silver that already exists in the game.

White gold and electrum are different things, although I guess sometimes people might consider the latter a variety of the former.

White gold used to be made using gold and nickel, although that's done less often now due to nickel causing allergic reactions in some people (and possibly other reasons). I think palladium is mostly used these days, but dwarves don't/can't/shouldn't have that. Of course, the reality is always a bit more complicated, especially since "white gold" is a fairly vague term, but a gold-nickel formulation is a pretty basic, workable one.

[Lord Shonus]

Alright. Not like I'm an expert.

[G-Flex]

Oh, it's also worth noting that electrum is usually naturally-occurring, although I don't think this is the case in DF yet.