Are there any nickels made out of silver

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Instead of reproducing, please provide the link to the original article or use the share buttons provided. What Nickels Are Silver? Posted: September 08, Categories: Silver Articles , U. Coin Articles. What Year Were Nickels Silver? How Much is a Silver Nickel Worth?

The nickel had a growth spurt The first five-cent pieces were small. Called "half dimes," they weighed exactly half as much as a dime because their values were based on the amount of silver used to make them.

The half dime's tiny size about 16 mm meant the coin was hard to handle and easy to lose. In , Mint Director James Pollock thought that a five-cent coin made of nickel alloy would be a good trade for the five-cent paper notes that were circulating then.

It turned out to be a good replacement for the half dime, too! The Mint once made two different 5-cent coins The first 5-cent coin was made of silver. Prior to October nickels made of the regular alloy continued to be made at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints.

In addition, since coins made of the normal alloy had already been produced at Philadelphia earlier in , the silver nickels made there were the first U. This change was also made to make it easier to spot the coins when they were redeemed at banks. The silver nickels were also easy to spot when freshly minted because they had a dazzling brilliant finish on them that was whiter in appearance than regular nickels and often with sharp striking of the details. However, with time the finish tarnished and toned, often becoming a dull grey and less attractive, which also happened with the steel pennies made for the war effort too.

An article by Mark Benvenuto published in The Numismatist magazine in explained that the change in nickel alloy may have saved as much as , pounds of nickel but that the amount was actually insignificant since million pounds of nickel were produced annually during World War II.