New Silver Proof Nickel?

I wonder why the US silver mint proof set, is'nt made with a silver nickel?:desk:. The Canadian silver double dollar set includes a silver proof nickel. :thumb:. Think how much more excitement there would have been over the Westward Journey series if they would have made silver proofs. It would also have lowered the regular proof nickel mintage.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I think the mint is leaving it at tradition as I believe, no nickels have ever been made of silver, just nickel and nickel alloys. There was a half dime that was made of silver.

 

The war "nickels" actually did not have any nickel in them at all.

 

the war "nickels" actually had silver in them....

 

I think you meant that they DID have silver--

Speedy

 

No, i was responding to aberlight, he said that nickels have always had nickel in them. The war issues had none.

 

Thats right. I completely forgot about the war time nickels.

 

I think the question asked more abou why not a silver proof nickel and the answer to that is that congress would have to introduce the idea and authorize it. Any change in composition is strictly within the realm of congress to decide.

The coins that are currently made of silver alloy in the Silver Proof Sets are coins that at one time were made of that exact same composition. A kind of "throwback" to borrow a sports uniform term. When the 1999 Proof Susan B's were made, I remember people calling for them to also be produced in the 90% alloy, but this was not done as the small dollar coin was never made in silver.

 

I realize that Canada has a 60,000 mintage limit on their silver set. But i should think that it could be done here, even with our high mintage. It should'nt add that much cost to the set, yet make the sets more desirable to the collectors by lowering mintage. You would then have four types of nickels(regular issue, satin finish, silver proof, regular proof). By adding the silver proof nickel, the regular proof nickel mintage would be lowered considerably. Taking 2001 as an example, there were 3,184,606 proof nickels between the regular(2,294,909) & silver(889,697) proof sets. That would mean 889,697 exclusive silver nickels produced!!!! Although the addition of a silver nickel might add to silver set sales/ mintage.:whistle:

 

I think it a great idea, I would love to see the Jefferson Nickel as a silver proof, i bet it would be a great looking coin! The war time nickels in MS condition look incredible. Lets start writing our congressman - if only they could get ANYTHING done and passed by the #1 cheese....







four dots - fill in the blank. :headbang:

 

They could make limited edition sets with a silver nickel & a gold cent. They could be Lincoln's 200th birthday limited edition sets.

 

Ah....right

Speedy

 

Doh, because it is called a nickel?:hammer:

 

kind of sounds like the penny versus the cent discussion. :kewl:


lets add to the new legislation that renames the nickel to simply five cent piece - that is and almost always has been struck on the coin - this way people don't get hung up on a word. :high5: Besides what collector does not want to add more silver to their collection?

 

It's not an ordinary nickel, it's a proof nickel for collectors! And the combination of silver & lower mintage would surely add some attention to the proof coin.

 

Oh ya - by the way QUAVIET - based on your rational we may soon have to rename the nickel. http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=2671 More money that will be based on worthless metal.

 

The way things keep inflating in price, they might want to just eliminate the fractional coins. Can you still buy things for under a dollar? My newspaper just went from $0.50 a copy to $0.75 a copy(At least it's under a dollar). We may enter an all credit card world before we know it. Making silver proofs probably would'nt cost the mint very much, since the costs would be passed on to the collector.

 

how can you rename something from something that wasn't its name in the first place??? It was never officially called a nickel, that is simply a tag placed on the 5 cent piece by the public... and before we get started, YES, it's EXACTLY like the cent versus penny discussion or the medal-coin discussion as well. Let's not have another one of those!

 

I sounded condescending but was only trying to be witty. To me the question seems obvious. The nickel (five cent piece) used to be called a half dime but silver became scarce and the mint started using a nickel alloy. There is the three cent nickel and the three cent silver but never a five cent silver. During WW2 there was a 40% silver nickel because the element nickel was a wartime needed metal because of its need in stainless steels, B-29 bomber or P-51 Mustang for example.

I think tradition is the reason that the mint has not made silver proof nickels (five cent pieces, but who calls them that) and is probably the reason they haven't made any silver proof pennies (one cent pieces).