Gary's 20th Century Type Set
5c LIBERTY HEAD (1900-1912)

Owner Comments:

The Liberty Head Nickel, a memento to the late Victorian era, began and ended its 30-year run in controversy. The Liberty Head Nickel entered circulation in 1883 without the denomination “cents” appearing on its reverse. This oversight resulted in gold plated nickels passing as $5 half-eagles. The US Mint quickly corrected this by adding the word “cents” to the reverse that same year. On the other end of the 30-year run is the controversial 1913 nickel of which only five examples exist. I was fortunate enough to have seen the McDermott/Bebee specimen of the 1913 nickel at the ANA’s World’s Fair of Money. The years in between were rather uneventful for the Liberty Head Nickel with no varieties, save the “no cents” variety, and only one date, 1912, minted at branch mints other than Philadelphia. The obverse of this nicely toned MS-63, 1911 Liberty Head Nickel features a bust of Lady Liberty wearing a “Liberty” coronet with shafts of wheat and cotton pods in her hair. Symbolic of the reconstruction period after the Civil War, the wheat shafts and the cotton pods joined by “Liberty” represent the North and the South respectively. This imagery is also present on the obverse of the Morgan Dollar. The main difference between the Liberty Head Nickel and the Morgan Dollar is that Lady Liberty is wearing a Phrygian cap on the obverse of the Morgan Dollar to convey that all Americans are free. Another name for the Liberty Head Nickel is the “V” Nickel because of the large Roman numeral “V” for five on the reverse that also features a wreath of American agricultural products encircling the “V”.