5 Cents '1867 Nickel' Pattern, nickel

The 1867 nickel five-cent pattern emerged from a genuine monetary crisis: wartime hoarding had driven silver and copper coins almost entirely out of circulation, leaving private brass tokens issued by merchants to fill the void. Congress wanted a cheap, hoarder-proof replacement. Nickel industrialist Joseph Wharton lobbied aggressively for the metal, having cornered the domestic supply at his Pennsylvania mines — his fingerprints are on the legislation that made this composition official.

Judd-566 is one of several competing pattern configurations evaluated that year before the final design was settled. The without-rays reverse variant won.