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I assume you are making some kind of a battery using a galvanized nail, some kind of copper electrode, and some kind of an acid substrate like a lemon.

Every element has a property called Electronegativity which is essentially the force to push an electron from one element to another.

The electronegativity of the following elements are:
Copper: 190
Zinc: 165
Iron: 183


Essentially the bigger the difference between the two, the more power you will get from your battery.

Thus, you are more interested in the zinc coating than the actual iron in your nail. You could have chosen other sources of zinc that would have been equally acceptable. For example you can buy pure zinc sacrificial anodes from most boat supply shops, or if you are careful you can carefully sand the copper off of "modern" pennies to get to the zinc core.

Your battery would probably work with just bare steel/iron for either electrode, but you would get a lot less power. It would be a good experiment. Iron also has a tendency to oxidize/rust which would decrease it's ability to conduct electricity.

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