1865

The 1865 three-cent nickel is the first year of a denomination created to replace the tiny, hoarded silver trime and to withdraw the dirty, ragged fractional currency notes Americans had been using for small change during the Civil War. The authorizing bill was introduced in the House by Representative John Kasson on the night of March 3, 1865, during an all-night session ahead of Lincoln's second inauguration the next day. Kasson had previously opposed nickel coinage but was persuaded to support it as preferable to Treasury Secretary Chase's proposed new issue of three-cent paper notes. The bill passed both houses without debate. James B. Longacre designed the coin: Liberty facing left wearing a beaded coronet inscribed LIBERTY, with the Roman numeral III inside a wreath on the reverse.

The three-cent nickel owes its existence in large part to Joseph Wharton, a Philadelphia industrialist whose Gap Mine produced most of the nickel used in American coinage during this period. Wharton lobbied Congress aggressively for new coin denominations that would use his metal. The three-cent nickel was the first result; the Shield nickel (five cents) would follow in 1866, also in the new 75% copper / 25% nickel alloy. Mint Director James Pollock never intended the nickel version to be permanent. He saw it as a temporary substitute until the silver trime could circulate again. The silver coin was killed first (1873), and the nickel version survived another sixteen years.

The 1865 mintage was 11,382,000 coins, far exceeding any three-cent silver mintage since 1853. The public took to the new coin immediately. Its silvery appearance helped draw fractional currency out of circulation, and its size and weight made it genuinely useful for small-change transactions. The coin also bought postage stamps directly, the same rationale that had created the silver trime in 1851.

Surviving 1865 three-cent nickels are common in all grades, though strike quality is a persistent issue. The date is characterized by weak central strikes (check the lines in the Roman numeral III on the reverse) and numerous die cracks. PCGS has certified well over 1,000 Mint State examples, mostly in MS-63 to MS-64. Higher grades are less common, and a well-struck gem with sharp central detail commands a meaningful premium over typical examples.