1868

1868 brought a mintage of 3.25 million three-cent nickels, continuing the steady run of the late 1860s. The political news that year was violent even when it stayed within Congress. The House had impeached Andrew Johnson in February, and his Senate trial ran through the spring. He escaped conviction by one vote. In July, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, making formerly enslaved people citizens and guaranteeing equal protection under the law. In November, voters sent Ulysses S. Grant to the White House. Three-cent nickels changed hands in all of it: in hotel bars where senators traded rumors, in railway stations, in small shops.

Common in circulated grades, the 1868 is one of several mid-mintage nickels from the post-war years that are readily available to collectors without significant cost.