Liberty Head "V" Nickels - fact and fiction

The Liberty Head or 'V" nickel (so called because of the prominent Roman numeral "V" on its reverse) was produced from 1883 to 1912. It replaced an earlier nickel, the "shield" nickel, which was almost universally thought of as ugly and had also caused production problems at the mint.

The new nickel, designed by Charles Barber, was a great improvement. The design is attractive. I particularly like the original version, which collectors call the "No Cents" design because the reverse had only that large "V" to indicate its denomination. It's a pretty design, with much fine detail in the wreath. That wreath is wheat, cotton, and corn - important crops then and now.

Liberty on the obverse is simple, but beautifully rendered. Our modern nickels certainly don't compare well to these designs.

Gold Plated Nickels

The story is told that the original design was gold plated and passed off as a five dollar coin to unsuspecting merchants. That design is sometimes called the "racketeer nickel" for that reason.

Often the story is elaborated to say that a particular miscreant named Josh Tatum was a major producer of this fakery. Supposedly Josh was a deaf mute and (as the story goes) he'd wordlessly hand over the coin and thus couldn't be prosecuted.

Josh was probably made up (see "Who's Joshing Who?" at this link), but that doesn't mean others didn't try this scam. I wouldn't believe it, though. It's a cute story and one that you can find widely repeated, but it's unlikely to be true. I have no doubt that people might have tried this trickery, but I doubt they would have had much luck passing them off.

First, consider that the purchasing power of five dollars in 1883 was roughly equivalent to $100.00 today. Few merchants today will accept a hundred dollar bill without examining it closely; I doubt that the store keepers of 1883 were any more trusting.

The size of the two coins is close, so a careless merchant might not have noticed that, especially if he had nothing handy to compare. But the weight is way off - the nickel weighs 5 grams, a $5 gold coin of the time would have weighed 8.36 grams.

You may be thinking that would be easy enough to ignore also, but it really would not have been. At this time, most of our money was either silver or gold and had metal value very close to its face value. In fact, these nickel coins were a fairly recent introduction - people knew very well what real gold was and what it was worth. Even without a scale, many people would have instantly known that the gold plated nickel was far too light.

If you still doubt that, put two dimes in one hand and four in another. That approximates what the nickel and a real $5 coin would have weighed. You can easily sense the difference and if you were holding something with that much purchasing power, you'd be paying close attention.

Many storekeepers had scales like this antique example for other uses and might have been able to actually weigh the offered payment anyway.

Finally, both gold and silver coins had reeded edges. This was to prevent people from filing around the edges of coins to gain metal - the alteration would be more noticeable because of the reeding. These nickels had plain edges and this was a detail that people would notice because everybody knew why the reeding was supposed to be there.

Those who would like this little story to be true will say that Josh or other counterfeiters added reeding to the nickels. That wouldn't have been easy. Nickel isn't soft - reeding would have required expensive machinery to produce anything realistic looking.

The mint did redesign to add "cents" (moving "E Pluribus Unum" to a less artistically pleasing location to make room) but I doubt it had much to do with gold plated nickels.

The 1913 Liberty Head

Production of this design ended in 1912, but five 1913 "V" nickels are known. These are almost certainly fakes, though likely made by a mint employee from real dies. One of these was sold in January 2009 for $3,737,500.00. That's an awful lot of money to pay for something that is technically illegal and could theoretically be seized by the Treasury Department!

This particular date was featured on a Hawaii Five-O TV episode with a plot just as unlikely as the gold plating of the 1883's. I do remember watching that and laughing at the idea that something so rare would end up in a vending machine.

Collecting Liberty Nickels

When I was a boy in the 1950's, you could still find these now and then in change and in nickel rolls from from the bank. They were usually well worn, which attests to their popularity. Many millions were minted and the "no cent" variety of 1883 was widely hoarded, so is easy to find in excellent condition.

I suspect that the apocryphal gold plating story and the rarity of the 1913 adds much to the appeal of these coins. I personally think that their beauty is enough reason.