Miami Valley Coin Club

Old Nickels

The nickel five cent piece has been around since the Civil War. Its almost century and half long run, however, might be coming to an end, at least with its current composition of 25% nickel and 75% copper. The metal in each coin is now worth more then the face value of the coin – it currently contains $0.0546 worth of copper and nickel. The U.S. Treasury handed down regulations several years ago prohibiting the melting and exportation of the coin, but the Treasury has also been authorized to explore making the coin with other materials. Speculation is that we might eventually see a steel nickel (or would that be a stickel), much like its Canadian counterpart north of the border.

 If the day ever comes when the current coin is replaced with a new metal, it’s safe to say that the common Jefferson nickel we’re all familiar with will begin to disappear into the melting pot, becoming less common in the process. This would deprive us of one of the more interesting series for new collectors. TheJeffersonwas first introduced 1938 and, when compared to our other circulating coins, seems to have a larger number of older pieces in circulation. Just how many, though, we don’t know.

 One of our members did a recent survey to find out. He picked up rolls totaling 4,160 coins from local banks to see what they contained. Because the series represents almost 75 years of issues, he decided to only look for coins made prior to 1970, focusing on the first 30 years of the series. Here’s a list of what he found 

 

He found 298 coins dated before 1970 in the sample, or 7.16% of the total. Nickels were found from each of the four decades, including a Fine first year of issue 1938 and two well well worn silver war nickels. The most common nickels were the 1964 and 1964D issued over a couple of years during the mid -1960s coin shortage. Those two dates alone made up over half of the coins found.

 So what does all this mean? Well, it would seem to say that you still have a pretty good shot of putting together a collection of most Jefferson nickel issues from circulation; it’s neat to think that you can even find silver war nickels after all these years. It also shows you what we can lose if we ever do see the melting of these coins. I doubt they will ever be rare, but you will see them vanish from your pocket quickly. Might be a good time to start working on that collection…