I recently was looking at nickel mintage's and I'm curios why so many nickels were made at both mints in 1964? Here's some mintage figures: 1962 97k 1962-D 280k 1963 175k 1963-D 277k 1964 1.024 billion 1964-D 1.787 billion 1965 136k 1966 156k 1967 107k
I believe nickels dated 1964 were minted in 1965 and 1966 as well, boosting the numbers. There was a coin shortage, either real or perceived, and silver was being removed from circulating coinage, which only made things worse. The mint viewed collectors as the villains, so they adopted a policy of making coins less collectable. That's the short version anyway.
Silver was being taken out of circulation as soon as clad coinage was announced. The content of nickels was not changed so they were not hoarded. Nickels were used to replace the silver coins at that time.
Hunt a roll of nickels from your local bank and you are bound to find at least one 1964 date in it. Look through pocket change (for those that still use cash) and you are probably going to find a 1964 dated nickel.
No. The coinage act of 1965 (enacted July 23, 1965) (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/89/s2080/text) allowed the mint to switch to clad coinage, not use mintmarks, and (less well-known) continue minting 1964-dated SILVER coins until there were enough clad coinage in circulation for commerce. The high mintage of 1964 nickels comes from demands for commerce as the silver dimes were being hoarded.
Yes the coinage act of 1965 specifically allowed the frozen 1964 date to remain for the silver coins, but the 1964 date was frozen for ALL coins by public law 88-580 signed Sept 3, 1964. so the 1964 date was frozen on the cent and five cent until July of 1965. And all coinage production had been greatly stepped up due to the coin shortage.
