1875

The Resumption Act was signed on January 14, 1875. The act committed the federal Treasury to returning the country to the gold standard on January 1, 1879, redeeming greenback currency at par in gold after a fourteen-year paper suspension. The legislation did nothing to increase commercial demand for new Shield nickels in 1875 (if anything, the promise of hard-money resumption made people cling to existing coinage), and Philadelphia produced 2,097,000 pieces for the year. The figure sits in the middle of the Shield nickel's long 1870s downward drift, less common than the early dates and still above semi-key scarcity.

PCGS estimates approximately 3,500 survivors across all grades, with around 500 in MS60 or better and 90 at MS65 or better. The auction record is $26,400 for an MS67 sold by Heritage in July 2025, with the finest known being a single MS67 example in the Greenbrier River Collection. The strong record price reflects the limited number of true Gem-grade Shield nickels from the mid-1870s, where the combination of moderate mintage and the chronic strike quality issues makes high-grade preservation genuinely difficult.

For collectors building complete date sets, the 1875 is a routine acquisition in lower grades and a meaningful challenge in MS65 or better. Specialist buyers pursuing the highest grade levels find it noticeably harder than the mintage alone would suggest, and the year joins 1870, 1872, 1874, and 1876 as one of the "middle-scarcity" dates that sit between the common early years and the genuine key years that follow.