Hi guys! Today my blog is going to be about silver Jefferson Nickels, or as I am going to refer to them in this blog "War Nickels". The first thing to know about war nickels is that they were made to preserve nickel for the war effort. The two things that make war nickels different is their composition and the location of the mintmark. The Mint decided to place the mintmark above the Monticello Building on the reverse of the coin, and they also decided to make the mintmark a lot larger than normal, making it easy to tell them apart from other nickels even they are not very silvery looking. They were made of 35% silver, 56% Copper, and 6% manganese. As a result of their different, unusual composition, they typically have a weird look to them that also makes them stand out. One thing I have noticed noticed that is that errors/varieties seem easy to find on war nickels, the reason I say this is because one time I hunted a $100 dollar box of nickels and found 2 war nickels in the box, but the interesting thing is that they both had a type of error. One of them had cool die cracks on the reverse, while the other had some cool lamination errors on the obverse, please see the pics below. Thanks for reading my blog! And have a great day!

Todays blog is about the Shield Nickel. The act of May 16, 1866 authorized  a new five cent coin made of 25% nickel and 75% copper. This created the unusual situation where two coins of the same value circulated at the same time (the other coin being the Half Dime). A massive quantity of nearly 15 million "Nickels" was produced in the first year, partly to promote the new coin and partly because of the availability of nickel and copper compared to the higher cost of silver for Half Dimes. the first versions of the new Nickel had rays on the reverse, between the stars surrounding the large 5 in the center of the coin. These extra elements caused the coinage dies to fail early because of the extra pressure needed to strike the nickel alloy and to force the metal into the recesses of the dies. To correct this problem, mint officials ordered the removal of the rays in mid-1867, creating two varieties: With Rays and No Rays, both of which you will need for a type set. Striking problems persisted, resulting in a series of coins noted for inconsistent strikes and lots of die cracks. Thanks for reading my blog and have a happy new year!-Source: PCGS CoinFacts Photo courtesy of PCGS