Golden 2005 Jefferson/Buffalo Nickel?

My guess would be that it is plated. Best way to tell is to weigh it.
My kids had a project in school where they plated coins.
Maybe someone else can give their opinion.

Hello wren337 and welcome to the forum!

Gold plating the old Buffalo nickels has been a long time novelty. Many of the new Jefferson Buffalo nickels are also getting gold plated as well and being sold as souvenirs or novelties. More than likely someone spent one of these gold plated coins.

Sacagewea dollars are manganese brass plating with a copper core. The plating is applied to the planchet before it is minted. A minted nickel would have to get in a bin of unplated Sacagawea planchets, plated, then removed before the planchets were minted and placed in a bin of finished coins. It is slightly possible that this happened, but very unlikely. If it happened to be a true error, it would not be possible to authenticate by picture alone.

Not a collector per se but I have a collection, I set aside anything unusual I find in change. When I was a teen I worked at a gas station, a woman came in wanting cigarettes and put a 1921 silver dollar on the counter. she wanted to know if she could spend it (for face value). I was smart enough to say yes - I still have that one. There were a ton of old silver reserve notes floating around about the same time. I always wondered what the story was behind that.