War nickles

joecheck

How do you tell the difference from the regular issue (silver) War Nickles and the ones made out of nickle?

LickThoseStamps

War nickels have a large mintmark, including P for Philadelphia, above Montecello. They were minted between 1942 and 1945.

StrikeOutXXX

The date. War nickels with the 35% silver were minted between 1942-1945.

MarineEAS1999

circulated war nickels are usually tarnished much darker than other nickels.

joecheck

There were some War Nickles (I believe for every year...42-45) that were struck in actual nickle, instead of silver. I want to know how to tell the difference. Maybe I did not express myself very well. Sorry!

ms70

The 1942 Philidelphia War Nickel (Type 2) was the first U.S. Coin to bear the "P" mintmark.

StrikeOutXXX

<< <i>There were some War Nickles (I believe for every year...42-45) that were struck in actual nickle, instead of silver. I want to know how to tell the difference. Maybe I did not express myself very well. Sorry! >>




1943-1945 was all the 35% silver.

1942 and 1942D were copper/nickel composition, the 1942P and 1942S were the 35% silver.

joecheck

There were some War Nickle errors struck in nickle. How do you tell them from the silver ones?!?

LickThoseStamps

I have not heard of any war nickels (mintmark above Montecello) struck in error on nickel planchets.

There were some counterfeit 1944 nickels produced. They lack the mintmark above Montecello.

StrikeOutXXX

found this with google, which they attribute to Breen:

"The error collector has several major varieties to look for. As with the steel cents of the same era, there are several wrong-planchet errors. For example, a 1942P is struck on a copper-nickel planchet. I can understand some left-over blanks being mixed in with the new ones. But the same error also occurred in 1943 and 1944. The San Francisco mint struck a silver nickel with the reverse die of 1941--instead of the large S mintmark, it had the small one next to the building.

A 1943/2 error was not discovered until the late 1970s.

In an era of double dies, there are three major varieties: some 1943P coins have a double eye; some 1944P coins have a doubled reverse; and some 1945S coins have a triple S mintmark.

Finally, Walter Breen lists at least four known 1946 philadelphia nickels struck on silver planchets. "


I suppose they're out there, but as both varieties weighed 5 grams, leaving out weighing them, unless you can tell by the slightly different color, I'm guessing it would take composition testing??

joecheck

There's a footnote about them on the bootom of the page in the 2007 Redbook under War Nickles.

Pictures

Steve27

"original nickel composition" means copper/nickel.

millennium

................nickel................

Conder101

Start by color. Unc silver pieces have a Whiter appearance than copper-nickel. The tissue paper test would possibly be successful with AU or Uncs as well.

For circulated coins the war nickels tend to be darker than the coppernickel coins and often have a "greasy" appearance.

Final confimation may be made by a specific gravity test. Copper nickel five cent pieces have a specific gravity of 8.9 while the warnickels have a specific gravity of 9.3. It's not a big difference but big enough to be easily checked.

joecheck

How do I do the tissue paper test? And, how do I measure the specific gravity? You lost me on both of these tests.

JJM

photo of mintmark



and a different coin

BlindedByEgo

I've alway found that the silver nickels have a different "ring" when dropped on a hard surface.