War Nickels

You can't call them a nickel because they don't contain any nickel

The composition of War Nickels (42-45) was changed to redirect critical materials (primarily Nickel) for the war-effort.

Silver "War" nickels were produced by the United States from mid-1942* through 1945. The coins were manufactured from 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. This allowed the saved nickel metal to be shifted to industrial production of miltary supplies during World War II.


Silver nickels are distinguised by a slightly different coloration than ordinary nickels and by the appearance of a large mintmark above Monticello's dome on the reverse side of the coin. The marks are "S" for the San Fransico mint, "D" for the Denver mint and "P' to indicate production at the Philadelphia mint, being the first coin to feature the Philadelphia intial, as no mint mark was the usual designation for Philadelphia mintage before 1979.

* Note that some 1942 nickels were produced without silver content. These will have a small "D" or "S" mint mark to the right of Monticello on the reverse or in the case of Philadelphia minted coins, no mint mark at all.

http://warnickels.com/

I would buy them since they are below melt. Down the road, this could be a huge bargain as silver goes up in value, and there is none to be found.

Now that was a fun conversation!

I read somewhere that it might actually have been prompted more for the propaganda than by a need to save nickel for armour.

Anybody know anything about that?

Jan

Got 4 rolls of them, 5 Franklin half dollars I needed and 4 90 % Washington quarters for $130.

You probably paid too much.

Long and short is that the silver in War Nickels will be much more costly to "extract" than the silver in 90% silver coins. That may be to the composition or the fact that there are far fewer War Nickels than 90% silver coins.

My advice. Avoid like the Bubonic Plague. They are only valuable if the silver can be extracted easily.

Imagine. Your local bank going up in smoke. Wouldn't have thought it possible..... Imagine the DOW below 7000..... Wouldn't have thought it possible.....

Imagine.....

I'm not trying to be difficult here. War Nickels have ALWAYS been cheap if you figure out how much silver is in each coin or roll. The point is that if it ever got down to actually melting them for the silver, it would require an entire different process and it would inevitably be more costly.

So DO NOT look at War Nickels and figure out their silver content and bid accordingly because they will NEVER have the same value as 90& silver coins such as the Walkers or Barbers.

By the Way, that's also why 40% silver, various world silver and other silver proof coins go for "less" than others.

When the smelters are melting, they don't like goofy and unusual things.