1 Cent - Willem III Pattern

This is a pattern strike, not a circulating issue — produced to test nickel as a potential replacement for the copper then used in Dutch cent coinage. The Netherlands was actively reconsidering its minor coinage metals during the 1850s and 1860s, partly in response to copper price fluctuations and partly influenced by Swiss and American experiments with nickel alloys. The proposal went nowhere; the Dutch retained copper for the cent, and nickel would not appear in Netherlands coinage in any serious capacity until the twentieth century.

Scholt I#584 b suggests a specific die variant within the pattern series for this year.