The vending machine was restocked at work today, giving me a bit of inspiration for this post.
This year marks the centennial of the Buffalo nickel, struck between 1913 and 1938. The Buffalo nickel’s design, by noted sculptor James Earle Fraser, made 21st-century comebacks to appear on both a 2001 silver commemorative coin and gold bullion coins from 2006 to the present.
If all had gone according to plan, the Buffalo nickel would have made its debut a calendar year before, in 1912, but for a vending machine owner who kicked up a huge fuss (here I tip my hat to David W. Lange and The Complete Guide to Buffalo Nickels, where I first read this story.)
Just before World War I, vending machines were spreading in the United States and the nickel, today best known as the smallest denomination still accepted in these machines, was the default currency in newfangled places like the automat.
Clarence W. Hobbs, of Hobbs Manufacturing Company, was a stakeholder of sorts in the new nickel’s design – his patented machines of the time were based around the Liberty nickel, after all – and he made his concerns known.
By “made his concerns known,” I mean “went full diva on the U.S. Mint and their artist.”
Wikipedia has all the gory details about what it terms the Hobbs Affair. Eventually, the Mint told Hobbs to change his machines to fit the new nickels, not the other way around. The Buffalo nickel made its debut, and people not named Clarence W. Hobbs generally were fans.
A generation later, however, vending machines came into play strongly with another Mint decision.
As part of the home effort in World War II, the U.S. Mint was tasked with reducing its demand for strategic metals, particularly copper and nickel, the latter of which is an important component of stainless steel.
A newly struck five-cent coin has a mass of exactly five grams and is made of an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Assuming no waste, one ton of nickel (the metal) is required for every 725,000 or so nickel (coins) made.
In the war climate, every ounce of stainless steel seemed to matter, and Congress authorized a new alloy for the “nickel” in 1942 of 50% copper, 50% silver, and 0% nickel, with the Mint afforded a healthy fudge-factor as it decided was best. This time, the nickel had to be changed with vending machines in mind, as the measure was meant to be temporary.
The Mint settled on an alloy of 56% copper, 35% silver, and 9% manganese, the last metal for the benefit of coin acceptors using magnetic properties to test deposited coins.
After the war, the nickel’s composition snapped back to the old alloy, where it has remained to the present day.
It may well be that another change is on the way, given how the metal costs of nickels were in the news last year.
One thing’s for certain, though: any new, cheaper alloy for the nickel will have to keep vending machines in mind.
(Working at Heritage Auctions is fascinating specifically because people like John Dale Beety, as he posts in his latest Coin Geek installment, can take something as mundane a restocking the vending machine at work and turn it into a history lesson. It’s the historical and politcal context that make the objects we deal with so interesting, across the categories, even when those objects are of the smallest and seemingly most insignificant variety. – Noah)