Most circulated Liberty nickels are worth a few dollars, and uncirculated range from $100-250. The early ones without “cents” are Type 1 coins and the remainder are Type 2. Recognizing the problem, midway through the first year, “cents” was added below the wreath. The first few coins didn’t have the word “cents,” only the Roman numeral, so counterfeiters began gold-plating them and passing them as five-dollar gold coins since they were of similar size. The Charles Barber design depicted a bust of Lady Liberty on its face and the Roman numeral V on the reverse surrounded by a wreath of wheat, cotton, and corn. The five-cent coin was redesigned for release in 1883. Key dates for the Shield Nickel include 1867, 1877-1881, and 1883 with a 3 over 2 date stamp. Heavily worn Shield Nickels are relatively easy to find for $25-50, but higher graded coins can go for thousands. Type 1 coins have rays between 13 stars surrounding the 5, but the rays proved hard to strike on the harder copper/nickel blanks, so in late 1867, the rays were eliminated on Type 2 coins. The first nickel has two design types both have a heraldic shield on the face and a large numeral 5 on the reverse. During that time, the nickel has had four major designs: the Shield Nickel (1866-1883), the Liberty Nickel (1881-1913), the Buffalo or Indian Head Nickel (1913-1938), and the Jefferson Nickel (1938-present). The nickel coin has been made continuously from its introduction in 1866 except in 1922, 1932, and 1933. With a brief exception in World War II, that alloy has been used since. First produced to make two-cent and three-cent coins, this alloy was used to make five-cent pieces beginning in 1866 and gave the colloquial term “nickel” to those coins. The new coins would be made of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Silver shortages and coin hoarding during the Civil War led Congress to authorize minting small denomination coins that didn’t contain precious metals. Prior to then, it was known as a half dime, a small, thin 90% silver coin that was about half the size of a dime, since a coin’s worth was commensurate with how much precious metal it contained back then. Silver continued to be used in the coins through 1945 when the end of the war alleviated metal shortages and the US Mint returned to their pre-war standard composition.The five-cent coin has been made by the US Mint since 1794, but has only been called a “nickel” since 1866. It also pressed a ‘P’ mintmark for those produced at the US Mint’s facility in Philadelphia, the only time the ‘P’ was used on a circulating coin until 1980. To differentiate these coins from the standard composition releases, the United States Mint included a large mintmark above the image of Monticello on the reverse. The standard composition of the 5-cent piece continued until 1942 when a critical shortage of the metal nickel (owing to World War II) forced the United States Mint to change the composition of the strikes to instead contain 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese, thus resulting in "wartime" Jefferson Silver Nickel. His portrait of Jefferson was based on a marble bust of the third President of the United States by Jean-Antoine Houdon. The design on the coins was taken from the work of Felix Schlag who won a competition against hundreds of other artists. The coins actually first appeared in 1938, but at that time were produced from a cupro-nickel composition. The Jefferson Silver Nickel, also known as the Wartime Nickel, was struck by the United States Mint from 1942-1945 from a composition of 35% silver.
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