3 Cents 'Three Cent Nickel'

Congress authorized this denomination in 1865 primarily to retire the three-cent silver piece, which had become impractical as silver coins fled circulation during the Civil War. The timing also aligned with the abolition of three-cent postage stamps in 1863, leaving the coin somewhat purposeless almost from birth — it survived in production largely through institutional inertia and the needs of small-change commerce in the Northeast.

The Philadelphia Mint produced the entire run without branch mint participation. By the 1880s annual mintages had collapsed into the thousands, and the denomination was formally abolished in 1890.