Nickel with denomination on it

Does anyone know why this was done to this nickel?

The GF was going through the change jar and I noticed this one of the coins.

 

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Someone with too much time on their hands!

 

It's raised metal (I guess) that has a rough texture on it. I've asked others (not numismatists) why they thought it got like this, but no one has offered any plausible explanation. Does anyone here have any idea (besides too much time on their hands) why this coin is like this?

Also, here's the other side. Just barely able to feel what is there.

 

It almost looks like JB Weld or something? Never ran across anything like that before. Very strange.

 

I would believe it was JB Weld if it wasn't scratched away in some places, and had the same texture of the coin underneath.

Also why would there be a slight version of it on the other side?

 

Are you sure it's metal and not paint or ink? It looks too precise to have been done by hand. It was probably printed mechanically, mayby someone testing an industrial marker or printer of some sort.

 

Yes, I'm sure it's metal.

 

It looks like some kind of training coin for foreigners. Since the denomination is just in English (no numbers), and the coin is larger than a dime, non-English speakers (at least here in Japan) often think a nickel is worth more than it actually is. So I think it may be used to teach handlers of American money that a nickel is just worth 5 cents.

 

I've already been all over those ideas. No one has any ideas that can be backed up with proof.

I still hope that this forum can hold proof.

 

I like Japan.

I also like Korea.

What does this have to do with tentacle porn?

 

I don't have "proof", but I have anecdotal evidence--
I was teaching a bunch of Japanese workers who were going to be sent on a one-year training mission to the US. My curriculum included just about everything they needed to know about life in the US. Of course, that included a section about money. The money-training part of the class included information about US circulating coins, and I used my own US coins as part of hands-on training. Nearly all of those guys had a hard time remembering that a nickel was worth less than a dime, so I took a magic marker and wrote 5c and 10c on the nickels and dimes, respectively, to get the point across.

So I think that is the most likely explanation.