Nickel was pulled from the five-cent piece in mid-1942 not as a wartime sacrifice but as a strategic necessity — the metal was critical for armor plating and industrial machinery, and the War Production Board moved quickly. The replacement alloy of copper, silver, and manganese was chosen partly because it could be detected by coin-operated machinery of the period, and partly because the Treasury had silver reserves it could actually draw on. To prevent hoarding, the mint mark was enlarged and moved above the dome — the only time in U.S. coinage history a Philadelphia issue received a mint mark, appearing as a large "P."
Nickel was pulled from the five-cent piece in mid-1942 not as a wartime sacrifice but as a strategic necessity — the metal was critical for armor plating and industrial machinery, and the War Production Board moved quickly. The replacement alloy of copper, silver, and manganese was chosen partly because it could be detected by coin-operated machinery of the period, and partly because the Treasury had silver reserves it could actually draw on. To prevent hoarding, the mint mark was enlarged and moved above the dome — the only time in U.S. coinage history a Philadelphia issue received a mint mark, appearing as a large "P."