1881 H Canadian Nickel

Quick answers

Is the 1881 H Canadian Nickel rare?

Not by mintage. 1.5 million were made, but it is silver, so even worn examples are worth their metal value rather than face value.

How many 1881 H Canadian nickels were made?

1,500,000 were struck for circulation.

What is the 1881 H Canadian Nickel made of?

Sterling silver (92.5% silver). It weighs 1.16 g and measures 15.5 mm.

Is the 1881 H Canadian Nickel still legal tender?

Yes. Canadian 5-cent coins are legal tender, but a silver one is worth more for its metal than its face value.

How to recognize it

The 1881 H Canadian Nickel is round, 15.5 mm across and sterling silver (92.5% silver).

1881 H Canadian Nickel by the numbers

By the numbers, the 1881 H Canadian Nickel ranks 22nd lowest of 161 Canadian nickel dates and varieties from 1858 to 2024. The next scarcer is the 1858 Canadian Nickel (1.5 million); the next more common is the 1896 Canadian Nickel (1.5 million).

For scale, the most common is the 2008 Canadian Nickel with 278.5 million, about 186 times as many. The scarcest is the 1884 Canadian Nickel with 200,000, 7.5 times fewer than this one.

Compared with the dates around it, the 1881 output was 2 times fewer than 1880 and 1.5 times the 1882 figure.

Over the 1880s the Mint produced 11.7 million five cent coins across 10 dates and varieties; the 1881 H Canadian Nickel accounts for 13% of that.

What to check on your 1881 H Canadian Nickel

• Check the date first: silver Canadian nickels carry dates from 1858 to 1921; this one has 0.0345 troy oz. Silver coins are not magnetic and ring clearly when dropped on a hard surface.
• Never clean it. Rubbing or polishing leaves fine scratches that collectors spot at once and that cut the value of silver dates sharply.
• Look at the high points of the portrait and the design. Wear there sets the grade. The grade in turn drives the value of older five cent coins.

Queen Victoria silver five cents (1858 to 1901)

Canada's five cent piece started life as a tiny silver coin. In 1858 the Province of Canada moved its accounts from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents, so it ordered new coins from the Royal Mint in London: a bronze cent plus silver 5, 10 and 20 cent pieces. The 5 cent weighed about 1.16 g of sterling (.925) silver and was barely bigger than a fingernail. Leonard Charles Wyon engraved a young laureate Victoria for the first issue. After Confederation the Dominion placed its own orders from 1870, now with a crowned portrait of the queen.

Canada had no mint of its own, so every one of these coins came from England. London struck most years, while Ralph Heaton & Sons of Birmingham filled several orders and marked them with a small H on the reverse. The reverse barely changed in more than forty years: 5 CENTS and the date inside a wreath of maple leaves with a crown on top. Production came in bursts. Nothing was dated 1859 to 1869, 1873, 1876 to 1879 or 1895 and yearly totals swing from 200,000 to 3,000,000.

Start with the date and check for an H, since the pair identifies the issue. The low mintage years are the ones to hope for: 1884 above all, then 1887, 1894 and 1898, with 1875-H scarcer than its total suggests. These coins were easy to lose and were often holed or made into jewelry, which is part of why decent survivors are hard to find. On a worn piece the hair detail and the leaf veins go first. Collectors also hunt small date varieties, such as overdates and different sizes of numeral, recorded in the mintage notes.

Mintage chart

Specifications