page_title: Three-cent nickel
section_title: Early years (1865–73)
hierarchical_section_title: Three-cent nickel / Production / Early years (1865–73)
caption_attribution_description: Obverse of 1879 Assay Commission medal
context_page_description: The copper-nickel three-cent piece, often called a three-cent nickel piece or three-cent nickel, was designed by US Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre and struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1865 to 1889. It was initially popular, but its place in commerce was supplanted by the five-cent piece, or nickel.
  With precious metal federal coinage hoarded during the economic turmoil of the American Civil War, including the silver three-cent piece, and even the copper-nickel cent commanding a premium, Congress issued paper money in denominations as small as three cents to replace the hoarded coins in commerce. These small slips of paper became ragged and dirty, and the public came to hate "shinplasters". After the issuance in 1864 of a lighter bronze cent and a two-cent piece of that metal, both of which circulated freely, there were proposals for a three-cent piece in copper-nickel to replace the three-cent note. The advocates were led by Pennsylvania industrialist Joseph Wharton, who then controlled the domestic supply of nickel ore.
context_section_description: The three-cent nickel piece was very popular when it entered circulation in mid-1865. More convenient than the larger two-cent bronze piece, it largely replaced that coin, starting the two-cent on its way to decreased popularity and abolition in 1873. The hard alloy, though, caused high levels of die breakage. Between 1865 and 1876, some 17 million three-cent pieces were used by the government to redeem the three-cent fractional currency notes.
  The Wharton nickel interests were not satisfied by the issuance of the three-cent piece, and soon began to agitate for the passage of a five-cent coin, to be made of the same alloy as the three-cent piece. The Act of May 16, 1866 introduced the five-cent nickel piece, or "nickel", as it has come to be known. According to David Lange in his history of the Mint, the five-cent piece has "become one of the mainstays of the country's coinage". The new five-cent coin was legal tender up to a dollar.
  The introduction of the five-cent copper-nickel piece greatly decreased the popularity and use of the three-cent piece. The three-cent piece had debuted in 1865 with a mintage of over eleven million and nearly five million in 1866; thereafter strikings declined, falling to under a million by 1871, a figure the coin would thereafter exceed only twice. The public had preferred small bronze coins to paper money, then the three-cent nickel piece rather than the bronze; they now preferred the five-cent nickel to the three. One reason for this was that the base metal five-cent piece would be redeemed by the government if presented in $100 lots pursuant to a provision in the authorizing legislation. There was no such provision for the three-cent nickel piece; neither was there any for the other base metal coins. Following Pollock's resignation in 1866 over his objections to President Johnson's Reconstruction policies, the new Mint Director was Henry Linderman, who in his first annual report in 1867, described the redemption clause in the nickel's authorizing legislation as "a most wise and just provision", urging its extension to the cent, two-cent piece, and three-cent piece. Postmasters were compelled to take three-cent nickel pieces in exchange for stamps, but had difficulty in depositing them in the Treasury in payment of their obligations, as the government would take no more than sixty cents worth of them in a single transaction. Private individuals and firms similarly refused them beyond the legal tender limit; those with a surplus of base metal coins often sold them at a discount.
  Congress took no action on a redemption bill, and in 1868 Linderman wrote again in his annual report, urging that the public be allowed to redeem small-denomination coins, as commerce was flooded with them. He disclosed that he had been redeeming the old copper-nickel cents with three-cent pieces and nickels. Carothers pointed out that exchanging the copper-nickel pieces for cents violated the 1865 and 1866 acts, that stated the three-cent piece and nickel could not be purchased with cents, but only for greenbacks or specie. Linderman strongly advocated a redemption law to relieve the glut of small coins:
   
  But the government that sold these tokens at par for their face value, or paid them as money to its creditors, now turns round and refuses to receive them back in payment from its own officers ... Was there ever an act of the government of a respectable people that, for meanness, can compare with this? An individual that practiced such a confidence game would be branded as a two-penny thief, and would soon be consigned to a house of correction. A government that practices such frauds upon the people cannot hope long to receive the respect of anybody.
  In 1866, Treasury Department official John Jay Knox was sent to examine the San Francisco Mint. After his return to Washington, he submitted a report that recommended many changes to how the Mint did business, including reform of the base-metal coinage. Knox complained that the various enactments for non-specie coinage were "entirely disconnected and incongruous". 
caption: Henry Linderman (seen on the 1879 Assay medal) strongly objected to the government's refusal to redeem the three-cent nickel.
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