UtahRich:
Me thinks that Monte is going to just call it a War Nickel and leave it at that.

Monte's thoughts:
It's just another mixed-metal Five Cent piece, and unless a coin had ~90% of one primary metal, then it is simply a 'mixed-metal' coin.

The common 5¢ piece had been called a "Half-Dime" because it was half-the-value of a 10¢ piece or Dime. That was, at first, the Half-Dime which was also called a Five-Cent piece. It started out with .8924% silver, but we casually call it a "silver Half-Dime" but the fact is, it is just a 'Half-Dime' in value. We add the word 'silver' to make a coin find sound better, especially if we're referring to finding a Roosevelt Dime. It's just a 'Dime' or 10¢ piece, but we are looking for, and hoping to find, a 1964 or earlier mintage that would be a 'silver' Dime.

Our Larger Cents and following Small Cents were just a 'One Cent' or 1¢ coin, even though they are made mainly of Copper. Even a 95% copper Penny was just a Penny or One Cent coin .... until we got those blasted 'modern', junk-metal Pennies made of Zinc that have a very thin copper wash to coat them. Because they are predominantly made of Zinc, we call the Zinc Cents. The 1943 Penny was made of steel and had a thin zinc metal coat, but we call them what they are, an that's a Steen Cent.

In both of those examples, we referred to those denominations by their primary metal alloy. That makes sense. Now, a coin made or 75% of one metal falls short of the ~90% 'limit' I consider to be predominant, so we don't use that in the reference to a coin, such as a 'copper 5-Cent Piece. It's a mix of 75% Copper and 25% nickel. The 'war-era' 5¢ coins, that we unjustly call a 'nickel' had a much lower percentage of silver use, at only 35%, so there's no real basis to consider them a true "Silver Coin" like the ~90% silver we saw use in Half-Dimes, Dimes, Quarters, Halves and Dollars.

We do error with other denominations as well. Consider the two different 3¢ coins we had. There were really three composition variations of them. The smaller-size 3¢ from1851–53 was 75% Ag (silver) and 25% Cu, so it fell below the ~90% requirement to be a 'true' "silver Three-Cent" piece. But the mintage from 1854–73 were ~90% Ag (silver) and 10% Cu so those truly qualify as being a 'silver' coin.

But the larger-size 3¢ piece, mintage from 1865 to 1889, the composition was 75% Cu and 25% Ni. So we maybe should be calling them a 'copper 3¢ piece' since 75% of their alloy was copper. I mean, we errantly call the 1851-1853 3¢ piece a 'silver' coin and it is also only 75% primary make-up of silver. So, probably the right move would be to call ALL of the larger-size 5¢ pieces a 'copper' coin and not a 'nickel' or 'silver' coin as those alloys were a minor part of their alloy make-up.

So, that said, I'm glad you found one of the better quality Five Cent pieces, with a good mix of Copper and Silver (in that order) which comprise a more durable mix than one of Copper and Nickel which is a lesser-quality or durable mix.

Here's a consideration, and I hope the mint folks are coming up with some better ideas.

"In December 2014, the Mint released its next Biennial report in response to the CMOCA. In it, the Mint declared that plated zinc products did not hold up to steam/wear tests and were rejected for U.S. coins other than the penny. Materials considered "feasible" for the 5-cent coin were nickel-plated steel, multi-ply-plated steel, and potentially another copper/nickel alloy, this time with ~77% copper, ~20% nickel, and ~3% manganese. Further testing was recommended to explore even less expensive alloys that would not require changes to vending machines (as the steel-based materials would require)."

I sure hope they don't get a lot of help from our Canadian friends up north. Maybe phase out the 1¢ coins and start minting some $1 and $2 coins of decent-quality metal alloy and dump the paper currency while they are figuring out a good metal for the 5¢ piece.

Monte

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