1883 Nickel With Altered Motto And Multiple Cracks

A "5" and not a "V"? Seems like a fake or fantasy piece unless I'm missing something.

1883 was the year when Shield 5C transitioned over to Liberty 5C so both separate coins types had the same 1883 date etc.

1883 Shield nickel. Die life on these was around 23,000 coins per die pair so there would have been somewhere around 63 pairs of dies used for this date. Not all of these die pairs have listed variety numbers. Recut and or Longacre doubling on the motto and other features on these coins is not unusual. Die cracks are also VERY common on Shield nickels. In fact it is very difficult to find coins that DON'T have die cracks. Once the cracks develop they CAN be used to tell different dies apart, but trying to link a later stage cracked die with a early stage uncracked die is more difficult and usually has to be done from either repunching done on the date or the exact placement of the date itself in relation to the other features such as the dentil and the lines in the shield above.

I just went through my copy of Fletcher's " Shield nickel Series - A Comprehensive listing of known varieties" book and see no listing for this coin. I used to have access to the Shield nickel variety database, but now I can't find it. The database listed a lot more varieties than the book does.