1943 Jefferson Five Cents 1938-1964 MS63

History

Nickel was diverted to military use in the spring of 1942, and the Act of March 27, 1942 permitted the Treasury to remove it from the five-cent piece. An equal-parts copper and silver alloy was suggested, but a .500 silver alloy would not trip the discrimination devices in coin-operated machines, so metallurgists settled on a copper-silver-manganese mix that met both the weight and electrical requirements. Because the coinage authority was set to expire December 31, 1945 and the emergency pieces were expected to be pulled from circulation afterward, the Mint enlarged the mintmarks and moved them to the reverse field above Monticello's dome, adding a P for Philadelphia for the first time. San Francisco met wartime demand with 104,060,000 nickels in 1943, a 68 percent increase over its 1942 output and nearly as many as that mint struck in 1942, 1944 and 1945 combined.

Details

Felix Schlag designed both sides of the coin, which retains the type introduced in 1938. The wartime alloy is 56 percent copper, 35 percent silver and 9 percent manganese, with a weight of 5.00 grams, a diameter of 21.20 millimeters and a plain edge. The San Francisco mintage of 104,060,000 dwarfs the other two mints of the date in relative terms at Denver, where 15,294,000 were struck, while Philadelphia produced 271,165,000.

Features

Jefferson faces left on the obverse, accompanied by IN GOD WE TRUST, LIBERTY and the date. The reverse shows Monticello with E PLURIBUS UNUM above and the denomination and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA below, and the oversized S sits in the field above the dome. Strike quality drives the market for the issue, and PCGS awards its Full Steps designation to coins grading MS60 or better that show at least five complete steps on Monticello, with joined or fused steps disqualified whether the fusing came from the dies or from later damage. The well-known 1943 varieties, the 1943/2 overdate and the doubled die obverse, are Philadelphia coins rather than San Francisco ones.

Notable facts

• PCGS considers the 1943-S a common date, and its population report shows larger submission totals for other issues such as the 1943-D and 1944-D.
• Citing the United States Mint, PCGS reports that the wartime composition change saved 4,900 tons of copper and 300 tons of nickel.
• The 1943 emergency extended to the Lincoln cent, which lost its copper that same year.
• Reported start dates for wartime-composition coinage in October 1942 are given as both October 1 and October 8, with the later date appearing in most numismatic texts.
• The 1942-1945 war nickels are the only United States five-cent coins ever struck containing silver.
• Pre-war composition and the smaller mintmark style, with no mintmark for Philadelphia, returned in 1946.