Shield Nickel

The Shield Nickel is the first American 5-cent piece, which is not made of silver, but copper nickel., Designed by James B. Longacre current coin was minted 1866-1883.

History

During the Civil War the outstanding gold and silver coins were hoarded in large quantities. This created, especially in the small Nominalien, a shortage of coins. To counteract this, banknotes were spent with small denominations, but found little favor with the public. Finally, James Pollock, Director of the United States Mint prompted the coining of the five-cent piece of nickel, which was approved on May 16, 1866, resulting in the legislature. The hard nickel proved to be problematic, however, despite the fact that only copper, nickel was used. The early specimens often have a poor quality stamping. The use of nickel as a coin metal is mainly due to the political influence of the nickel magnate Joseph Wharton.

Description

The coin features on its front a signal applied to the seal of the United States shield with two olive branches. In the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" is (English: In God We Trust ) and including the year of issue.

The reverse shows the value "5" surrounded by a circle of 13 stars. In the first years of imprinting were among the stars additionally beams whose clean embossing was technically too demanding and were therefore omitted soon. This circle is in turn surrounded by the country name "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA " and the Währungseinhieht " CENTS ".

The coin has a diameter of 20.5 mm and weighs 5 g The edge is smooth. It consists of copper nickel, 75 % copper and 25 % nickel.

Vintages and conditions

The following table contains all embossed vintages and their support. (English: Proof) In the third column the requirements of the coins in proof are listed. All coins were minted in Philadelphia. The vintages marked with an asterisk have rays between the stars on the back.