Received this 1943 P war nickel in change from a local gas station. Never seen a nickel as polished as this one.
Might be plated. Maybe with nickel. Will be slightly ferromagnetic if it is. I found one CRH several years ago I’ll see if I can find a pic
First thing I did was put a magnet to it and it did not stick at all. It's a nice addition to my circulated nickel set.
Old Story- back in the mid 70's the local grocery store chain "Loblaws" had a gimmick for old coins. I think it was you spend so much and you get a old coin ??? So my brother and I got one set completed. They must of whizzed thousands of these coins. So, you had a holder to put them in calling them Coins of yesteryear. One was a steel penny, a silver nickel, mercury dime, silver washington quarter and a walking half. All the silver were extremely whizzed like this one. I'll have to dig mine out.
I won a date set of Washington quarters in an old cardboard holder from eBay. Every one was polished like this. A shame, too -- I think there were a couple of overstruck MMs, and some of the coins were likely MS before hitting the polisher. But I got the set slightly below melt when silver was low, so not as much of a shame as it could've been -- I bought them as junk silver, and that's how I flipped them. Edit to add: this looks like polishing, as opposed to whizzing. Whizzing puts fine radial lines on the coin's surface, producing an imitation of original luster. Polishing just produces a mirror finish, like this.
I’m with @-jeffB ob this coin. It looks polished to death, poor thing but I don’t see those fine lines from being whizzed. I had to look again.
sad In time the coin becomes dull and corroded appearing. Not saying that this coin has been mercury treated, looks more like ultra polishing.
Commenting on some coins in a showcase in a thrift store, another shopper pulled out a walking liberty half that was buffed to mirror brightness...
Here is the ad from the grocery store chain "Loblaws" here in Upstate NY. This ad was from 1973 All the nickels & coins sold were polished just like one above. The store must of done thousands of polished coins. I was 9 at the time and thought they were cool to be so shinny.
for those following of what I wrote - here is the silver coins I got from Loblaws back in the 70's that where super polished and whizzed - I forgot I put one in my mercury dime folder but took it out for the pic. You can easily which one it is.
I got the same set!! I think I still have the holder somewhere, though I replaced some of the coins later on. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
