Some Questions About Nickels.

1. Everyone to busy with all those neat cars.
2. SanFransciso people are just odd
3. Now this is an easy one. One the reverse of a penny there just isn't room to say 100th of a dollar. The back of a Nickel hasn't enough room for 1/20th of a dollar. And for sure no room on a Dime to say ten of these makes a dollar. And your right about quarters. Those should have stated it takes four of these to make a dollar.
4. Same as 2. above.
5. There was but the Denver Mint kept putting a D on them.
6. Now there is one even I don't know.
Those are actually decent questions and I'll bet someone will give you the real answers. Got to get myself a book on Nickels next.

Sort of an odd way to say I really have no idea. But why admit that in public.

1. Not sure, but coin production is normally dependent on the economy. My guess would be that the economy was in a downturn and fewer coins were needed. However examination of the mintages of the other coins for that year do not support that idea.

2. San Francisco production probably didn't begin until late in the year after the silver composition was approved.

3. Specksnyder got this one. The coins were defined as their relationship to the Dollar. The cent was one hundredth of a dollar, the dime was a tenth, the quarter was a quarter etc. But there is no specific term for a twentieth, so the five cent piece has either been defined as a multiple of the smalled denomination, five cents, or as a fraction of the next larger denomination, Half Dime.

4. By 1955 it was decided that the Denver and Philadelphia mints production capacities were high enough that they could comfortably supply the coinage needs of the whole country and the San Francisco mint was no longer needed and it was turned into an assay office. It remained that way until 1965 when a national coin shortage required them to reopen the San Francisco mint to once again make coins.

5. I'm not sure but it might have to do with the fact that during that period they were in the process of moving into the new Philadelphia mint, getting it set up and fine tuning it's production. During 1969 there may have also been delays while they were experimenting with a new type of roller press that they hoped would take over all of the production. (The press failed and they had to junk it and go back to the regular presses.

6. The opposite of #2, the Denver mint produced its quota before the silver composition was approved.

Here's a few more questions guys:

1. In regards to Canadian nickels, does the Alloy Recovery Program also take out the 1982-1999 nickels that are 75% copper/25% nickel?
2. The most important question of all that I forgot to ask: Why is a nickel even called a "nickel" if it only has 25% nickel? Basically since 1866-1942 and 1946-current the composition has been 75% copper/25% nickel. May as well have called it a "Copper."

I might be able to shed some light on the Canuck alloy recovery program.

This was verbally given to me by a civil servant working at the mint when I was negotiating a technology contract for a client and they have proven they don't really know what is always going on, but nonetheless, here is what I was told;

The Alloy recovery program is targeting silver and pure nickel coins. Of the nickel coins, the priority is currently five cent pieces and 25 cent pieces made from pure nickel alloy in that order. The ten cent piece is targeted when capacity allows, but it's primarily for silver content. Cupro nickel alloys do not currently allow for a large enough ROI in harvesting them, where farming nickel and using it for plating steel core coins gives the greatest return in their business model due to the sheer amount of nickel involved.

I do not know the status of one cent copper coins.

I myself have about 400lbs of nickel, but it's not because I was hording nickel, I was just sorting five cent pieces into years during the 70's/80's and ended up with that many. The reason being someone always come up with "Did you see the article on the newly discovered 8 on the 1968 that exactly like frosty the snowman?" Then I head back and unroll the 68's and have a look... Of course frosty usually turns out to be salad dressing or something else sprayed on there, but it's worth a look at times.