Catch the Famous "V" where the US was mistaken...

Here's an intriguing story where the US Mint actually refuses to take fault for it's easily mistaken identity.

The liberty head or otherwise known as the very famous V Nickel was designed by the Mint Director Charles Barber way back in 1883. The coin was put to heavy use through 1913 and was replaced by the the famous, Buffalo Nickel. One of my favorite coin stories comes from that first year issue V Nickel, in 1883. The U.S. Mint actually refuses to admit to it, but they forgot to put the word cents under the V on the reverse side of the coin. It turns out that this nickel was the same size as the five dollar liberty gold minted during that same time. It also had a very similar design on both the obverse side and reverse of the coin.

Because of this mistake, crooks plated the V Nickel with gold, and then, they would pass them off as five dollar gold coins. Finally, the mint got wise and started striking the coins with the word cents on the reverse side. This simple and necessary change saved alot of money and time lost from those honest merchants.

Contact Jim Fisher at Precious Metal Advocates by calling our 888.566.MINT (6468) or email me at jimfisher@pmacoins.com.

Happy Searching,

Jim