1889

The 1889 three-cent nickel is the final circulation issue of the denomination. The Mint struck 18,125 circulation pieces and 3,436 proofs. One memorable detail from the production run: the reverse die shattered early and was never replaced. The Mint simply continued striking with the broken die until the year ended. The shattered-die feature on most 1889 three-cent nickels is a fittingly eccentric closing note for a denomination that had been limping along for years.

Production ceased in 1889, but the denomination was not formally abolished until September 26, 1890, when Congress passed an act discontinuing the three-cent nickel alongside the gold dollar and three-dollar gold piece. The act ordered that existing coins be withdrawn from circulation as they returned to the Treasury and melted for recoinage into other denominations. Millions were ultimately recoined into Liberty nickels, which explains the relatively thin survival of circulation strikes from the 1880s even for dates with seemingly adequate mintages.

The three-cent nickel died because its commercial purpose had evaporated. Congress had never granted the denomination unlimited legal tender status; redemptions were capped at 20 coins per transaction, an arbitrary limit that flagged the coin as a second-class denomination from its inception. The 1873 decision to keep the nickel version while killing the silver trime was most likely a favor to Joseph Wharton's nickel business rather than a reasoned monetary policy choice. By 1889, the denomination had outlived the postage-rate justification that had created it and the fractional-currency crisis that had revived it. The 1889 closes a series that ended quietly, to little public notice, in the final year of a Pennsylvania industrialist's most successful lobbying campaign.