why is my canadian nickel brown?

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Where have you had it?

 

Some one must have swallowed it...then reclaimed it.

 

ive have it for like 10 years with a bunch of other coins in a glass jar, before that i found it in the dirt

 

I was about to say it probably had been underground . being in the dirt will do this .

 

Looks like a lot of the ones I find in the ground with my metal detector.

 

thank you! appreciate it

 

In 1982, composition of the Canadian 5-cent coins changed from 100% nickel to 75% copper and 25% nickel (same as US nickels). So, they tone and darken differently. That said, there are other types of "brown nickels" from 1982 to 1992, which are copper-rich alloys. I tested a bunch on the XRF in my lab, and published a paper in June 2012 on this very topic.

I would gladly test your coin for free...

 

how would we go about doing this exactly, and if it turns out to be one are these coins rare, are they worth anything

 

I think you can send me a private message, if you want me to test your coin. There is one caveat - I get to use the data for future publication. There is no real demand for this variety yet, they are not overly rare, but not common either.