The Canadian five-cent coin, commonly called a nickel, is a coin worth five cents or one-twentieth of a

Canadian dollar The Canadian dollar (currency symbol, symbol: $; ISO 4217, code: CAD; ) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $. There is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviations Can$, CA$ and C$ are frequently used f ...

. It was patterned on the corresponding coin in the neighbouring United States. It became the smallest-valued coin in the currency upon the discontinuation of the penny in 2013.

History

The "Victory nickel", struck from 1943 to 1945, was the first non-standard circulating Canadian coin other than commemorative dollars; the reverse features a flaming torch and a large V that stands for both Victory and the coin's denomination. The rim denticles were replaced by the phrase "We win when we work willingly" in

Morse Code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

. This design was re-used in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of

V-E Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations ...

. Almost uniquely in the history of Canadian coinage, the reverse was engraved to scale by Thomas Shingles; most coin designs are engraved at a much larger scale and reduced with a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...

. In 1951, a special commemorative five-cent piece depicting a nickel refinery was struck to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the metal's initial discovery by Swedish chemist Axel F. Cronstedt. Due to the onset of the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

, production of this commemorative was halted to preserve nickel for the war effort, resulting in a second non-commemorative 1951 "nickel" made of plated steel. In 1967, all the circulating coins received a special reverse for the Canadian Centennial; the nickel featured a rabbit. In proof sets issued since 1996, the five cent coin is made of sterling silver. Some commemorative five cent coins are also made of sterling silver.

Types and specifications

Circulation figures

Victoria & Edward VII

George V & George VI

Elizabeth II

Charles III

Commemoratives

Collecting

According to author Allen G. Berman, Canadian nickels struck in pure nickel are "very difficult to grade" due to the alloy's hardness. Five-cent coins dated 1921 are among the rarest and most collectible Canadian circulation coins, known as "the Prince of Canadian Coins." Estimates of the number of specimens known range between 400 and 480. In May 1921, the government of Canada passed an act authorizing the change to the larger nickel coin, and subsequently the majority of the 1921 mint run was melted down. The coin believed to be the finest-known specimen (PCGS MS-67) sold for at auction in January 2010. It was then sold by the Canadian Numismatic Company for $160,000 to a private collector in early 2012.

Notes

References

External links

*
Value of Canadian Nickel
{{Canadian currency and coinage 1858 establishments in Canada Five-cent coins Coins of Canada

Coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

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