New Nickels

U.S. war workers will soon match for cokes with a new kind of nickel. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau last week told the Philadelphia mint to get going on new U.S. 5¢ pieces containing 35% silver, 56% copper, 9% manganese—but no nickel. The current Jefferson head-and-home design will not be changed. Present coins are 25% nickel-75% copper, and the switch to new alloys will save about 850 tons of nickel and copper annually.

It will also save a lot of headaches for the U.S. Treasury, which has worked on nickel-less nickels for almost a year. Last February a 50% silver-50% copper nickel was tested, wouldn’t go down most coin-operated machines. The new nickels work fine.