1900 Liberty nickel...What planchet?

I would not be surprised if your nickel was a trial/experimental piece . I do recall reading some place that the U.S. Mint had indeed prepared some coins of this type for nicaragua . So I do not believe this is an error coin, but rather a trial piece which was not authorized for circulation. Now you really have my mind getting crazy to recall where from in my library I recall reading this. It's going to drive me nuts until I recall exactly just where. Very neat Coin and regardless of condition I would have the specimen authenticated. I have two canadian pieces I am considering sending off, if you agree nightowl, perhaps we could combine coins, discounting authentication and grading fees, or if you are agreeable, perhaps we could come to terms on my purchasing the specimen from you. Either way, Thank you for the Thread!

 

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I was suggesting that perhaps the mint had struck a few trials for nicaragua...which would still make it a striking error. The Liberty nickel was pretty firmly entrenched in 1900....and I don't think they were looking to produce a lighter weight nickel, since that 5 grams has been constant since the first Liberty nickel in 1883...until the present.

Nghtowl

 

It would not be the 1st.ck Fred Weinberg online shop
http://www.fredweinberg.com/

 

what?

I didn't understand your comment.

 

All I was saying ck Fred online store/or send for his catalog. he had a few coin like this one for sale before.

 

I have an older hard copy list from Fred Weinberg describing an 1891 V-Nickel struck on a foreign planchet weight 2.9 grams. However it was a copper colored planchet so the weight doesn't apply to your coin.

 

Yeah....I wish it was struck on a one cent planchet. Those are spendy.

The 1899 Cinco Cenatvos has been shipped....so a few days and I'll know what one of those weighs in comparison.

Nigthowl

 

Well......The 1889 Nicaragua Cinco centavos arrived in this morning's mail, and it weighs 3 grams (actually 2.95 grams), or 1.9 .dwt as shown in the attached pic. Seems a very likely candidate to me, and would seem that the information supplied by the seller of the coin I linked to at Heritage...is probably correct.

As for the Colombia piece...if it was 35 percent silver, it would most likely have that "lead" appearance similar to our war nickels...right? This looks like a normal copper nickel coin.

Nightowl

 

How does it compare diameterwise?

 

They are nearly identical in diameter. I got out my digital caliper...and the battery is kaput....but I might have one here...if I can find it. I locked the caliper on the 5 centavos, and the nickel will fit in the caliper in some orientations...but not others. It's not exactly round since it didn't fill the nickel dies though.

I'm going to see if I can find that battery.

OK...found it. The 5 centavos measures .780 mm in diameter, and the Liberty nickel measures between .794 and -.799 mm depending upon where you measure it.

Nightowl

 

OK that fits, the struck nickel should be slightly larger than the 5 centavo, and those units should be inches not mm. Still need to figure out how one of those planchets got to the US mint.

 

You're right of course...inches, not millimeters.

Somebody knows the answer to that riddle....but not me. I looked at the pdf article on the web, and that article and accompanying list would indeed lead one to believe that the US mint did not mint this coin.

Now....is it possible that the US mint was simply the supplier of the planchets for them? ....perhaps shipping them to the Swiss (or other) mint for coining?

Nightowl

 

The list I have for foreign coin production also includes planchets produced for other countries. The US mint did not supply the planchets for the 5 centavos either.

 

Sounds to me like their record keeping may have been "less than impeccable" since this isn't the first of this specific striking error to show up. Somehow....these planchets ended up between Liberty nickel dies more than once.

Thanks for the input.

Nightowl

 

Each coin made by the U.S. Mint for another country was minted to the specifications dictated by the client country. Some of the clients of the U.S.Mint requested to be furnished with planchets to be utilized at their native mints in the coining process,as was the case with Argentina in 1919 and 1920. In the case of the Venezuelan 1 and 2½ Centavosstruck in the Philadelphia Mint in 1876 and 1877,the U.S. Mint sub-contracted out to the Waterbury Mint, owned by the Scovill ManufacturingCompany, to supply planchets for foreign andregular U.S. issues. The Waterbury Mint provide dthe US Mint with many of the planchets for regular U.S. 1¢ and 5¢ pieces from 1888 to 1906.In some cases the client country would manufactureand furnish the dies to the U.S. Mint to strike thecoins, while other countries opted for the U.S. Mintto produce the minting dies and to mint the issues. Athird alternative that was utilized by some client countries, most notably the Dominican Republic,was the usage of a third party mint to produce thedies and then use the U.S. Mint to manufacture the coins. This arrangement led to coins like the 1897 Dominican Republic One Peso struck in 1898 and 1899 by the US mint with dies made by the Paris Mint that bear the “A” mint mark on the reverse near the bottom of the coin. In theory, a foreign coinage issue manufactured by the U.S. Mint could involve four or more parties.

 

Hello Nightowl,

There is a V-nickel on foriegn planchet (2.96 grams) for sale on Teletrade right now.

http://www.teletrade.com/coins/lot.asp?auction=2778&lot=1775&imagetype=j

Very best regards,
collect89

 

I wish they wouldn't cale them struck on foreign planchets unless they can explain where the planchets came from. The mint only struck or made foreign planchets that early for two countries. Venezuela in 1876 and 77 and Hawaii in 1883. The Hawaii pieces were struck in San Francisco so that lets them out, and none of the Venezuela coins were that heavy (2.5 grams max and it was too big to fit in the nickel coining chamber.)

So since the mint wasn't striking coins for other countries at the time, or making planchets for other countries, and they had never made coins or planchets of that size and weight for others, where did thie "foreign" planchet come from? (And if it isn't a "foreign planchet" where does a round piece of scrap metal come from?)

 

Here's a thought... what if it's a wrong stock error.... say a sheet of nickel was fed into the blanking machine when it was set for cents... or maybe even rolled thin and then blanked in cent size... then produced as nickels...

thoughts???

 

I previously stated, the planchets were made at the mint in connecticut, where practically all the foreign planchets were made.

The Scovill MFG Company in Waterbury , CT.

 

The wrong stock theory could be plausible....but who has a cent struck in nickel that we could weigh?

Nightowl