Jefferson Devils

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

About a week and a half ago, there was a short factiod list posted on CoinWeek.com by Quentin Bowers. The first factoid said:

 

Jefferson nickels should actually be called Jefferson coppers, as they contain much more copper (75%) than nickel (25%).

http://www.coinweek.com/expert-columns/q-david-bowers/bowers-curious-true/

 

I got to thinking about that, and the word “nickel” itself and did a very brief look into the etymology of the word. Here's what I found...

 

Of the words cent, nickel, dime, and quarter, nickel is the only word that doesn't relate to a number or fraction.

 

*Cent is from the Latin centum meaning 'hundred'

*Dime is from the Latin decima pars meaning 'tenth part'

*Quarter is from the Latin quartarius meaning 'fourth part of a measure'

 

But as far as I could find, there is no Latin term for 1/20th. So where do we get the word nickel?

 

Well, according to Etymonline.com, the English nickel is a shortening of Swedish Kopparnickel meaning “copper-colored ore”, which is from the German Kupfernickel meaning “copper demon” where Kupfer- means “copper” and -nickel means “demon”.

 

Apparently, Kupfernickel was an ore that looked like copper but yielded none. I guess we could best relate it to fool's gold; pyrite.

 

So maybe we should call Jefferson nickels: Jefferson demons or Jefferson devils. I like the latter.

 

 

But there's more...

 

Looking more into the word nickel, Etymonline.com says that it is a pet form of the proper name Nikolaus or Nicholas. These proper names are derived from the Greek Nikholaos, which means “victory-people,” from Nike meaning “victory” and laos meaning “people”.

 

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the Liberty Head Nickel, which featured the Roman numeral V on the reverse but was, and still is, also called the victory nickel by some due to its similarity to the V hand sign.

 

 

So, perhaps people are not so far off to call the Liberty Head Nickel the "Victory nickel."

 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nickel

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nicholas

[Conder101]

Another reason for the Kupfernickel was because of the incredibly high temperatures needed to smelt the metal. It was said to take "the very fires of hell" to accomplish it. (copper melts at 1,984 degree F, nickel at 2,651 degrees F.)

 

I'm not sure if it was commonplace earlier but Churchill's V for Victory hand sign was from WWII some 23 years after the V nickel ended.

 

And the first coins referred to a "nickels" were the flying eagle and indian head cents of 1857 to 1864 and they were even higher in copper content with only 12% nickel.