This helps make up a little for the fake seated dollar i got yesterday (got my refund ) was bidding on about 6 of these and they all kept slipping/jumping over 100 on me.. but finaly nabbed this one for about 1/2 list I'll let you GTG for now and will post the full slab tomorrow lol...
AU 55 now when discussing the shield nickel only two nickels had rays the 1866 which yes indeed did have rays...the 1867 at first was minted with rays,then it was decided to not include the rays on the reverse die just the 5 and stars. So when posting a date other than a 1866 or 1867 no need to include with or without rays.that term only applies to the 66 & 67....and more so just the 67 due it having rays,or not. The difference between the shield from other 5 cent pieces is this measure up a shield nickel to any other nickel Liberty, buffalo,Jefferson...its so slight but a shield nickel is 5 gr. 750 copper, .250 nickel *** 20.5*** mm dia. where a nickel from 1883 liberty *** diameter is 21.2*** mm same medals, same 5 gr. Weight. Now in the beginning the shield was the first attemp by the US mint to strike in a medal harder than silver,and gold. True they struck in lll NC coins... but that slight difference in thickness from the shield series to the Liberty nickel made a die last longer! Its estimated < 10,000 strikes of a shield nickel die the die would explode! You will notice how many shield nickels have wild die cracks? Again a harden steel die was no match for a blank of that thickness....and composition of medals.
One of the problems was they had no experience with how to anneal/soften the planchets. they were still learning by trial and error, and there was also the problem of how to judge temperature. they didn't have the nice probes and digital readouts that we have today, they had to judge the temperature by eye based on the color of the metal while looking through a hole in the furnace. Getting to the metal to the right temperature and keeping it ther for the right amount of time can be critical. And when you don't have a lot of practice/training and you are working with an unfamiliar alloy there are going to be a lot of problems.
