War Nickels— A Switch Which Launched a Thousand Heavy Tanks
JCH22
Posts: 252 ✭✭✭✭
Had wondered how significant a switch from nickel to silver really was to the war effort.
Apparently, it was enough to provide the nickel necessary to make armor plate for 1000 heavy tanks per year:
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Very cool.
Fascinating. I'd always wondered how much of a difference it made as well.
The actual composition became 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. Silver was dirt cheap back then. I'm sure they had no idea that the silver in a war nickel would today be worth $1.66, and that the vast majority of war nickels would have been melted for their silver content.
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Very interesting. Proves through coin collecting one can learn history. Thanks for the info.
Very interesting, thanks.
Mr_Spud
Most interesting 🤔
It's nice to see hard numbers on the benefits. We know that a lot of the war-time home front sacrifices were somewhat cosmetic. More sharing the pain than realistic benefits to the war efforts.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
They also were considering reviving three cent pieces and half dimes. I think bringing back the half dime from a policy standpoint would have been the most beneficial as a clad half dime would save us a lot of grief concerning nickel costs.
It's a good thing we didn't have Tiger tanks or the total number of tanks added would have only been a fraction of that.
Some true heavy US tanks were designed and built (40 M6 examples + prototypes of an even heavier tank). The US M3 and M4 medium tanks were produced in very large numbers. The Germans would probably have been wise to put all of their money and effort into the production of more Panther tanks. The Panther tanks were much, much cheaper than the Tiger I and Tiger II of which only about 1500 were ever built. The US Built about 45,000 M4 Sherman tanks, each costing about 1/7th of what a Tiger Tank cost. The Tigers were very deadly but had flaws. They were too heavy and experienced frequent breakdowns. They also used too much fuel for a country that suffered from fuel shortages.
I wonder what the metal prices need to be before smelting becomes profitable? Are there any laws prohibiting it in the US?
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See https://federalregister.gov/documents/2007/04/16/E7-7088/prohibition-on-the-exportation-melting-or-treatment-of-5-cent-and-one-cent-coins .
It prohibits melting of cents and nickels, HOWEVER, the following text appears in the supplementary information section:
"The Industry Council for Tangible Assets (Council), a trade association for rare coin and precious metals dealers, submitted a comment suggesting that an exception be added for the exportation, melting, or treatment of “war nickels.” War nickels were 5-cent coins produced during World War II, from 1942 through 1945, from a special alloy of copper, silver, and manganese in order to conserve nickel for the war effort. The Council points out that the war nickels are traded for their numismatic value, they are melted for the value of their metal composition, and that few, if any, remain as circulating coins. Because it appears that covering war nickels under the regulation would disrupt longstanding practices and would not further the protection of circulating coinage, we have added an exception for such coins."
The melting of war nickels began around 1963, when the silver in a war nickel was worth about 7 cents. Melting has continued since then, but because it costs more to reclaim silver from war nickels compared to reclaiming it from 90% silver coins, war nickels have usually traded at a discount relative to the amount of silver they contain.
My own estimate is that more than 90% of all war nickels minted have either been melted or lost through attrition. The low-mintage 1943-D was preferentially saved in quantity, including circulated specimens; but other dates generally were not, and some (like the 1944-S) might actually be scarcer now than the 1950-D nickel.
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Spot on with both your date, and value in 1963!
The Chronicle, Dec., 18, 1963
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Thanks, as a college student in 1963 I was actually searching rolls for war nickels and shipping them off to refiners. Postage was cheap enough to make it worthwhile, especially with the dollar worth 10 times what it is today. (As a bonus, I also found a couple of 1950-D nickels and some mintmarked buffaloes from the 1920's.)
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Fascinating, very cool
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Very interesting. On the same topic this paper below had a theory that both Japan and Germany started minting nickel coins in 1933 with the intend to recall them in case they were at war. They felt they could hide the real reason they were buying so much nickel by minting coins. Some of which were never issued.
Coins FOR CONFLICT:
NICKEL AND THE AXIS, 1933-1945
JOHN PERKIN
Lead in of the paper.
"As early AS 1933 the Japanese and German governments minted nickel coins as a way of stockpiling a strategic raw material. Such an apparently innocuous use for nickel obviated the need to tie up capital in a conventional method of storage. In 1933 a traditional nickel stockpile would have raised suspicions about Japanese and German intentions. At the time, Germany was defenseless against French intervention. Because the German and Japanese economies both suffered from a chronic shortage of foreign exchange in the mid 1930s, the importation of nickel for coinage could be more readily justified than for the creation of a conventional reserve for future armaments production. Japan began to produce pure nickel Sen coins in mid 1933 to replace coins made of a copper-nickel alloy. By the end of 1937, 335 million pure nickel Sen pieces were in circulation. In 1933 Nazi Germany commenced production of pure nickel Reichsmark pieces to replace silver coins issued between 1924 and 1927. By September 1939, 467 million pure nickel coins were in circulation in the Third Reich. Thirty percent of these coins had been minted in 1934 and another 40 percent were produced from January to August 1939."
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Great reference! Japan was completely dependent on imports for nickel. Appears the quest for nickel may have been a driver in the formation of the Axis Alliance:
Abstract of : New Caledonian Nickel and the Origins of the Axis Alliance, 1931–40, Chad B. Denton:
In a 25 August 1940 telegram, the Vichy colonial ministry ordered New Caledonia to turn over its entire nickel production to Japan. This decision, announced in Nouméa on 3 September 1940, has been interpreted by ....historians ... as a ‘camouflaged’ military invasion and a trigger for the successful bloodless coup that brought New Caledonia to the side of Free France 16 days later. The telegram’s full text, however, suggests an equally important interpretation, one that contributes to recent scholarship arguing for the ‘trans-imperial’ origins of the ‘global axis alliance’ from 1931 to 1940. Drawing on Japanese, Australian, American and French archival sources, this article argues that New Caledonian nickel – a crucial metal in armament production – not only helped Japan’s pursuit of a [self sufficient] empire in the 1930s but also served as a Japanese bargaining chip that helped convince the Germans to sign the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940.
Interesting to learn that nickel/coins was such a substantive concern for all combatants.