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The original Liberty nickel design indicated the denomination only with a large Roman numeral V.

The Liberty Head nickel, sometimes referred to as the V nickel due to its reverse design, was an American nickel five-cent piece. Officially, it was minted from 1883 to 1912; a few patterns were struck in 1881 and 1882, and five pieces were surreptitiously struck in 1913, which today number among America's most fabled numismatic rarities. This coin had a composition of .75 copper and .25 nickel.

In 1881, Mint Superintendent James Ross Snowden decided to unify the designs of the cent, three-cent nickel, and five-cent nickel. Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber created Liberty Head designs for all three denominations, and patterns were struck later that year. However, Snowden was unable to implement his desired design alterations for the cent [1] and three-cent nickel [2], so only the five-cent nickel design ever saw full production.

The word "CENTS" was added to the reverse of the Liberty Head Nickel in mid-1883.

In early 1883, the Liberty Head nickel was first struck for circulation. The first 5.4 million pieces struck contained the Roman numeral V on the reverse, but did not contain the word "CENTS". Con artists quickly noted this, as well as the fact that the coin was roughly the same size as a five-dollar gold coin, and began gold-plating the new nickels and attempting to pass them as gold pieces. [3] According to numismatic legend, one of the perpetrators of this fraud was a deaf-mute named Josh Tatum, whose name is allegedly the origin of the verb "joshing". Supposedly, Tatum was not convicted because, being unable to speak, he did not actually make any fraudulent verbal claims regarding the coins, but merely accepted the change handed to him by the storekeeper [4]. This tale, however, may be apocryphal [5]. Whatever the truth of the case, what is known is that the Mint decided to add the word "CENTS" to the reverse design of the Liberty Head nickel in the middle of the 1883 striking [6], and this change remained until the coin was discontinued.

Liberty Head nickels were struck every year from 1883 to 1912. Most were struck at the main U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, but in 1912 the Denver and San Francisco mints also produced the coins. These can be distinguished from the Philadelphia-mint strikes by a small D or S mint mark on the reverse, which is located below the lower left dot. In 1913, the Liberty Head nickel was superseded by James Earle Fraser's new design: the Indian Head (Buffalo) nickel.

Main article: 1913 Liberty Head Nickel

The Indian Head design was introduced in February 1913. Prior to this, no production of Liberty Head nickels had been ordered, and none appear in the U.S. Mint's official striking records. Despite this, five such coins were struck [7]. All five were initially in the possession of Samuel Brown, who was a Mint employee at the time, and it is commonly assumed by numismatic historians that Brown surreptitiously produced the coins and then secreted them out of the Mint [8]. Clandestine strikings of this nature had been very common during the 18th and 19th centuries, but had become less common by 1913. The coins first came to the attention of the numismatic community in 1920. At one time, all five were owned by Colonel E.H.R. Green. Today, two of the coins reside in museums (one in the Smithsonian Institution, and one in the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum), and the other three are in private collections. The finest known specimen sold for $1,840,000 in a 1996 auction, and later resold for $4,150,000 in 2005 [9]. The "Olsen specimen", famous for having been featured on an episode of Hawaii Five-O, commanded $3,000,000 when it was auctioned in 2003 [10].

• CoinResource.com - Liberty Head Nickels 1883-1913
• CoinFacts.com - Liberty Nickels
• J1671/P1872(1881 pattern)

• Liberty Head Nickel Pictures