The Shield Nickel With Rays: a coin too stubborn to strike

The Civil War made small change disappear. As the war dragged on, Americans hoarded anything with metal value — gold, silver, even copper-nickel cents — and what was left in pockets was a mess of grimy paper "fractional currency," some of it worth as little as three cents. People hated the flimsy notes. The Mint hated them too.

Into that gap stepped Joseph Wharton, an industrialist who controlled most of the nickel mining in the United States. Wharton had product to sell and the ear of Congress. He pushed hard for coins made of nickel — and the heavier the coin, the more nickel each one would consume. His lobbying helped shape the Coinage Act of May 16, 1866, which authorized a new five-cent piece: five grams of metal, 75% copper and 25% nickel. The "nickel" was born, named for the minority metal that made it stand out from the silver coins it replaced.

It also solved a different problem. With no silver half dimes circulating, the country needed a hard, durable five-cent coin that anyone would accept — one worth far less as metal than as money, so no one would melt it. The new nickel fit exactly.

The job fell to James Barton Longacre, the Mint's Chief Engraver, who designed both sides. For the obverse — the "heads" side — he reached for a motif he had already used on the two-cent piece: a heavy ornamented shield drawn from the Great Seal, topped by a cross, framed by laurel branches, with crossed arrows below and "IN GOD WE TRUST" arcing over the top. It reads less like a portrait and more like a national emblem — fitting for a country that had just fought to stay one nation.

The reverse is where the trouble started. Longacre placed a large numeral 5 at the center and ringed it with thirteen stars for the original states. Between those stars he set thirteen rays — short bursts of metal radiating outward (early Mint paperwork even called them "bars"). It was striking to look at. It was also a nightmare to make.

Before settling on the shield, Longacre had worked up other ideas, including pattern coins carrying portraits of Washington and Lincoln. (A pattern is a trial coin struck to test a design that may never reach circulation.) Unease about putting any individual's face on the money sent him back to the safe, symbolic shield.

The new copper-nickel alloy was punishingly hard, and the rayed reverse asked too much of it. To fill all those sharp angles and recesses, the dies had to slam down with enormous pressure — and they kept cracking. Coins came out with weak, mushy details. Die life was short, and the Mint was burning through steel.

So the rays were cut. On January 21, 1867, the Treasury ordered them removed; production of the simplified "No Rays" reverse began that February. That single decision splits the whole series into two collectible types. The With Rays type — Type 1 — exists only for part of 1866 and part of 1867. Everything struck from 1867 through 1883 is the plainer No Rays type.

That makes the math simple for collectors. The 1866 With Rays is the affordable, available date — the one most type collectors buy to represent the design, since over fourteen million were made. The 1867 With Rays is the scarce one: far fewer business strikes, and as a proof (a specially struck presentation coin with mirror fields) it is one of the great rarities of the series, with only a handful believed to survive.

Two more things keep collectors hunting. First, because the rayed dies struck so poorly, a fully sharp, well-detailed example is genuinely hard to find — even a common 1866 in a high grade with crisp rays commands a premium that a worn one never will. Second, the design's brief life gives it outsized appeal: a complete U.S. type set needs a With Rays nickel, and there are only two dates to choose from.

A small, true aside on the legend: some accounts say the rays were dropped partly because the radiating-stars motif reminded people of the Confederate "stars and bars." It's a recurring story — and it may have played a role — but the documented, decisive reason was production: cracking dies and weak strikes. Treat the politics as plausible color, not settled fact.