I picked this up in a 'lot' of nickels on ebay. It is struck on a foreign planchet. I don't have an accurate digital scale, so I don't know the exact weight, but it's about half the thickness of a nickel. Seems the US mint was making 5 centavo pieces for both Colombia and Nicaragua in 1900, so likely it's one of those two. It is of copper nickel composition. I don't collect errors. I will probably end up selling it and buying something else with the proceeds. The scratches are unfortunate...but it is what it is. It's amazing that the coin has been significantly circulated. Just thought you'd like to see what you can still find out there. Note:...The 4 grams figure is wrong....my scale is woefully innacurate. It's probably less than 3 grams. I'm going to have the local jeweler weight it. Nightowl
I sent pics of it to Mike Ellis, who lots of guys here will know, given that he's been president of Coneca 4 times, and he seems confident that's what it is. I may send it to Dominion for authentication. A friend of mine was going to be seeing Mike at a dinner over the weekend, and was going to ask him about the cost of the service. I'm not a big fan of plastic. I've been around coins for 40 years, so I am confident that the coin is legit. I don't own a slabbed coin...unless you count the1905 Liberty nickel I bought last night....for about the cost of submission....which is why I don't have much use for TPGs. For most material...it just adds cost that you will never recover. FWIW...If you want to see numerous examples of this type of error, go to the Heritage site and look in the archives, searching for Liberty nickel error, and you'll find pictures of several examples, even one dated 1900. Nightowl
Can't be on a Columbian planchet. They didn't coins for Columbia until 1902. The 5 centavos was 835 fine silver only weighs 2.5 grams and was 14mm (Smaller in diameter than our dime. Your coin is larger than that.) Nothing from Dominican Republic comes close either (10 and 20 centavo comes closest but they are 350 fine silver with the balance being copper. The 20 C is 5 grams though and the 10 c is only 2.5 grams. Neither one seems to fit.). Just went through all the coins the US has struck for other countries and the only thing that comes close is Venezuela 1 centavo of 1875. It's a copper nickel zinc alloy of 19 mm. But the 25 year gap is hard to explain. There is nothing else close in size or composition before 1902. The only other coins we struck for others between 1877 ad 1900 were gold coins for Costa Rica in 1897, 1899 and 1900. Ecuador 2 decimos of 1895 but it's too large at 23 mm. Hawaii in 1883 but nothing there comes close.
Heritage has one currently listed, also a 1900....struck on a Nicaragua 5 centavos planchet that's about the same size. Nightowl
How could you tell? The Nicaragua planchet of 1898 and 1899 is the same size weight and compositon as the US five cent piece. (after 1899 they didn't make any until 1912, nd it was the same size, weight, and compositon too.
Maybe old stock the mint had laying around but just a guessing?? I am not a collector of liberty nickel's
I took the coin in question and used photoshop and cut it out and placed it over the actual nickle, and it is smaller in dia. ...........................
