How Can You Detect Nickel Mint Errors

Presuming that you are talking about US coins here, the 1944 nickel should be 35% silver and the 1946D should not have any silver. Both should weigh 5.0 grams, and be 21.2 mm diameter, not 19.53 mm. I would advise against rubbing any coins on a stone, regardless of color. If you could get photos of the coins, we may be able to be more help.

That is a tough one since weight and diameter are the same. Perhaps the thickness is different, but I doubt it since they wanted the War Nickels to work in the vending machines. There is a device that can scan metal items and tell you what metals it is made of, but last I heard, they cost about $30,000. I will try to remember to bring my only War Nickel to work tomorrow and see if it has a different electrical resistance then a regular nickel.

Mine is also in my Dansco, but it is just a filler and have my nicer replacement in a 2x2 this afternoon, so I will try the multimeter on it.

I can tell you from personal experience that the US nickel has not changed size, so I am wondering if the error nickel you are talking about is stamped on a silver dime planchet instead of a silver War Nickel planchet. If that is the case, then the weight should equal that of a silver dime at only 2.5 grams and be extremely thin. I must admit that I do not know of such an error, just what might be theoretically possible.

I personally check the diameter of newer nickels with my Caliper. They all 21.22 mm. Nod2003 is right, KM Catalog wrong!

Back to Mint Errors, besides 1943 Penny; 1944, 1946 D Nickel; 1970 D Quarter; 1971 D, 1977 D Half, any one knows any others (Modern coins only)?
Samuel tan

Hi Samuel,

You asked me about using metal detectors in another thread and I said I'd get back to you here. I just did a few tests on some regular Jeff's and a War Nickel. The detector I am using is a Minelab Explorer XS, although I suspect other good detectors would give similar results.

The War Nickel had a higher sounding tone than the normal nickels. Basically the higher the tone the more conductive the metal. So silver and copper (and clad coins) have higher tones and nickel, gold, platinum, and iron have lower sounding tones. While the tone was a bit higher on War Nickels it was still very much in the nickel range (you'd never mistake it for a silver dime). I noticed some variation within normal nickels, with a shiny new nickel sounding similar to my rough looking War Nickel (I didn't want to pop one of my nicer ones out of its holder, but I'm positive it would sound the same or a bit higher).

I think this would work as a method of telling silver War Nickels from regular ones of the same date. But you would need some controls. Basically some nickels you are sure are the standard nickel alloy and War Nickels that you are positive are silver. You just need them to wave in front of the detector to tune your ear to the difference each time you have nickels to test. The difference between a regular nickel and a War Nickel is subtle compared to the full range of tones a detector makes, but there definitely is a difference.