Nickel Three Cents (1865-1889)
Nickel Three Cents (1865-1889): identify, compare, and value
Use this page to identify details collectors compare, understand value clues, and check current market examples.
Value Guide Summary
Use this page to understand what this collectible is, what details collectors usually compare, and where to check current market examples.
What collectors look for
Original condition, age, maker marks, materials, completeness, unusual variants, and documented history usually matter most.
How to identify examples
Compare markings, construction details, finish, size, period-correct materials, and known design features before assuming authenticity.
Value clues
Rarity, demand, condition, eye appeal, provenance, and whether similar examples are actively selling can all affect market value.
Red flags
Watch for reproductions, heavy restoration, replaced parts, fantasy pieces, unclear photos, and listings with vague descriptions.
During the Civil War, hoarding of precious metals was so widespread that even the small copper-nickel cents of 1857-64 had disappeared from circulation. Numerous alternatives had been tried, including private tokens, encased postage, postal currency and fractional currency. All were unpopular. The most widespread and least liked was fractional currency. These small paper substitutes for coins wore out quickly, became ragged and dirty and were easily lost. In 1864, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P.Chase proposed a new issue of three-cent postal currency. That was enough to convince Congressman Kasson that even nickel coinage was preferable to another issue of the universally despised paper money. With Kasson's support, members of both houses passed the bill without debate, and thus the nickel three-cent was born. The new coins had a silvery appearance, unlike the yellowish caste of the copper-nickel cents. This, no doubt, was useful in drawing the old, unwanted pieces of fractional currency from circulation, and it was also an aid in replacing the non-circulating silver three-cent pieces. The small silver three-cent piece introduced in 1851 was widely hoarded and had not been seen in circulation since the dark days of 1862, when Confederate military victories threatened to tear the Union apart. Since that time, the silver three-cent piece had been minted in very small numbers. The new nickel three-cent piece was immediately popular, due to its appearance in large numbers in 1865 and its usefulness in replacing the fractional currency. Three-cent coins could also be used to purchase postage stamps, thus eliminating the need for the hoarded copper-nickel cents.
The design was created by Chief Engraver James B. Longacre, who was also responsible for the Indian cent, gold dollar and three-dollar gold piece. Longacre was an especially accomplished portrait painter, but he lacked the necessary imagination to create allegorical figures that could represent an abstract concept such as Liberty. As a result, his coinage designs tend to have a flat, two-dimensional quality.
What Longacre created for the new nickel three-cent coin was a design featuring the head of Liberty wearing a coronet and facing left, with the date and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the periphery of its obverse. The reverse is simply designed as well, with the Roman numeral III in the center to signify the denomination, surrounded by a wreath. The head of Liberty required no imaginative leap for the designer. It was a safe piece of work and fit well in the mid to late 19th century Greco-Roman tradition of coinage designs. For all his shortcomings in imaginative design, Longacre was especially adept at designing two coinage motifs: hair ornamentation and wreaths. Both of these design elements are well executed on the nickel three-cents. Liberty wears a beaded coronet with the word LIBERTY in incuse relief. The wreath on the reverse is an adaptation of the laurel wreath previously used on the copper-nickel cent of 1859. Grading nickel three-cent piece is an uncomplicated process because of the simplicity of its design. Wear will first begin to show on the high points of Liberty's hair on the obverse and on the wreath and Roman numeral on the reverse. Completeness of strike is generally not a problem. On business strikes, however, the first digit in the Roman numeral III is opposite the cheek of Liberty, and as a result some coins are poorly defined on that numeral.