page_title: Shield nickel
section_title: Varieties
hierarchical_section_title: Shield nickel / Design and production / Varieties
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail from 1873 Shield nickel, "Open 3" variety
context_page_description: The Shield nickel was the first United States five-cent piece to be made out of copper-nickel, the same alloy of which American nickels are struck today. Designed by James B. Longacre, the coin was issued from 1866 until 1883, when it was replaced by the Liberty Head nickel. The coin takes its name from the motif on its obverse, and was the first five-cent coin referred to as a "nickel"—silver pieces of that denomination had been known as half dimes.
  Silver half dimes had been struck from the early days of the United States Mint in the late 18th century. Those disappeared from circulation, along with most other coins, in the economic turmoil of the Civil War. In 1864, the Mint successfully introduced low-denomination coins, whose intrinsic worth did not approach their face value. Industrialist Joseph Wharton advocated coins containing nickel—a metal in which he had significant financial interests. When the Mint proposed a copper-nickel five-cent piece, Congress required that the coin be heavier than the Mint had suggested, allowing Wharton to sell more of the metal to the government.
context_section_description: The Shield nickel series has yielded a large number of varieties. Howard Spindel, a leading expert on Shield nickels, notes that Shield nickel dies produced far fewer coins than other coin dies, as the dies wore out so fast that the Mint was continually under great pressure to produce new ones. According to Spindel, many dies were hastily and carelessly produced, producing numerous minor varieties.
  Bowers points to the 1868 nickel as "a playground for repunching [repunched dates], errors, and the like". Specialists have found more than sixty different doubled die varieties, caused by misalignment when the heated die was repeatedly pressed against the hub to transfer the design. There are several different kinds of repunched dates, including a variety in which the numeral "1" is much smaller than usually found on the Shield nickel.
  As with many denominations of United States coins, there are two major varieties of the 1873 piece. The initial variety, known as the "close 3" or "closed 3" was struck first. These coins led to a complaint by the chief coiner, A. Loudon Snowden, to Pollock, who was again director of the Mint. Snowden stated that the numeral "3" in the date too closely resembled an "8". The Mint prepared new date punches, in which the arms of the 3 did not curl around toward the center, creating the second variety, the "open 3".
  The final year of production saw an overdate, 1883/2, with a visible "2" under or near the digit "3". This variety was caused by the use of 1882-dated dies which were not destroyed at the end of the year, but were instead repunched with a four-digit logotype, "1883". Five different dies are known to have been so reused, and Bowers estimates a mintage of 118,975 pieces. Spindel estimates that only 0.2%–0.3% of the pieces have survived to the present.
caption: 1873 "open 3" variety
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