The Liberty Head 'V' Nickel (1883–1913)

In 1883 the U.S. Mint released a brand-new five-cent coin — and almost immediately had to fix it.

The problem was a word that wasn't there. The new nickel showed a large Roman numeral V (five) on the reverse — the "tails" side — but nowhere did it say cents. Five what? A V-shaped denomination on a coin about the size of a five-dollar gold piece was an invitation, and sharp operators took it. They gold-plated the new nickels and spent them as if they were $5 gold coins. The U.S. Secret Service put out a warning within days. By early March, the Mint had a fix in the works: a new reverse die with the word CENTS added at the bottom.

That makes 1883 a two-design year. The Mint struck the "No CENTS" coin first, then switched to the "With CENTS" version once the scam came to light — so a single date carries two distinct types, and the flawed first version became an instant curiosity. (More on the gold-plated "racketeer nickels," and the legend that grew around them, below.)

Why a new nickel at all? The coin it replaced — the Shield nickel of the Civil War era — was a headache to strike. Its dense, fussy design wore out dies fast and produced weak, uneven coins. The Mint wanted something cleaner and more durable. In 1881 Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber was asked to prepare a fresh, classical Liberty design for the one-cent, three-cent, and five-cent pieces at once. Only the five-cent design was approved, and it went into production in early 1883.

The man behind the coin was Charles E. Barber, the Mint's Chief Engraver, and he designed both sides.

The obverse — the "heads" side — shows Liberty as a classical profile, her hair tied up and crowned with a coronet reading LIBERTY, ringed by thirteen stars for the original states and the date below. It is a calm, Roman-cameo kind of portrait, the same restrained classical style Barber would later bring to his dime, quarter, and half dollar of 1892.

The reverse is where the trouble started. At its center sits a large Roman numeral V — the only thing on the coin that originally stated its value — wrapped in a wreath of cotton, corn, wheat, and tobacco, with the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM above. After the 1883 redesign, the word CENTS was added below the wreath, finally spelling out what the V was worth. That single added word is the difference between the two 1883 types, and the easiest place to tell them apart.

Because the V is the coin's defining feature, collectors and the public simply called it the "V nickel" — a nickname that stuck for the coin's entire run and long after.

For a coin that ran thirty years, the Liberty nickel is a surprisingly attainable set — with a handful of genuinely hard dates that decide whether a collection is "complete."

The two 1883 types. Every Liberty nickel set needs both 1883s: the No CENTS (5,474,000 struck) and the redesigned With CENTS. The No CENTS coin is famous but not rare — millions were made, and because people guessed (correctly) that the flawed design wouldn't last, many were saved. It is often one of the most affordable old U.S. coins a beginner can own in nice condition.

The early Philadelphia keys. The toughest regular dates are clustered early. The 1885 has the lowest mintage of any of the Philadelphia (no mint mark) issues — roughly 1.48 million — and few were saved, which makes it the classic stopper of the series, especially in higher grades. The 1886 is the next-hardest, scarce and pricey despite a larger mintage.

The 1912 branch-mint coins. For its first 29 years the Liberty nickel was struck only in Philadelphia. Then, in its very last year, the Denver and San Francisco mints joined in — the first nickels ever struck outside Philadelphia. You can tell them by the small mint mark (the letter showing where a coin was made) to the left of CENTS on the reverse: D for Denver, S for San Francisco. The 1912-S is the prize: San Francisco didn't begin striking until December 24, 1912, so only 238,000 were made — the lowest mintage of any business-strike Liberty nickel, and the key to the whole set. The 1912-D is far more common.

Why high grades are scarce. These coins circulated hard for decades, and Liberty's hair and the corn ears on the reverse were the first details to wear flat. A sharply struck, fully lustrous example — especially of an early date — is far harder to find than the mintage figures suggest, because so few were set aside new. That gap between "how many were made" and "how many survive in top condition" is what drives prices at the high end.

And then there's 1913. See the FAQ below — it is the most famous five-cent piece in America, and the Mint's official position is that it shouldn't exist at all.