1885 Canadian Nickel
The 1885 Canadian Nickel is a Canadian nickel struck for circulation with 1 million made. Value band: metal value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 1885
- Circulation mintage
- 1,000,000
- Value band
- Metal value
- Composition
- Sterling silver (92.5% silver)
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Metal value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is an 1885 Canadian Nickel worth?
The 1885 Canadian Nickel is a silver coin with 0.0345 troy ounces of pure silver, so its floor is its metal value: 0.0345 times the day's silver spot price. With 1 million made, worn examples trade for about their silver; collectors pay more for sharp, original coins and much more for uncirculated ones with full luster.
What would make yours worth more:
- Sharp detail with original luster
- A recognized variety for the date
- Professional grading for a key date
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 1885 Canadian Nickel rare?
- Not by mintage. 1 million were made, but it is silver, so even worn examples are worth their metal value rather than face value.
- How many 1885 Canadian nickels were made?
- 1,000,000 were struck for circulation.
- What is the 1885 Canadian Nickel made of?
- Sterling silver (92.5% silver). It weighs 1.16 g and measures 15.5 mm.
- Is the 1885 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.
The 1885 nickel in context
After the tiny 1884 order, 1885 brought the five cents back to a more normal level of 1,000,000 coins, all struck at the Royal Mint in London. It was a year when Canada was growing fast and the Canadian Pacific Railway was being completed, but in terms of coinage it was a fairly modest order. There is no H version and none was struck in Birmingham. It was the second London order in a row, after Heaton had handled the five cents from 1880 to 1883.
What makes 1885 interesting is not the mintage but the date punches. The engravers worked with different sizes of numeral and in 1885 both a small 5 and a large 5 were used for the final digit. On some dies a large 5 was punched over a small one, leaving a mixed date. Varieties like these are a reminder that dates were added to dies by hand with individual punches in this period, so small changes crept in. Specialists who collect these date varieties often look for all three versions of 1885 together, which makes for a neat little group.
How to recognize it
The coin carries the crowned portrait of Victoria with the legend VICTORIA DEI GRATIA REGINA CANADA. The reverse shows 5 CENTS and the date in the center of a maple wreath, topped by a crown. All of the action is in the last digit of the date. A small 5 sits low and looks undersized next to the 8s, while a large 5 matches them more closely in height. On the overdate you can sometimes see the curve of the smaller 5 peeking out from under the larger one. The coin is sterling silver and weighs about 1.16 g, with no mint mark since it was struck in London.
1885 Canadian Nickel by the numbers
By the numbers, the 1885 Canadian Nickel ranks 12th lowest of 161 Canadian nickel dates and varieties from 1858 to 2024. The next scarcer is the 1882 H Canadian Nickel (1 million); the next more common is the 1888 Canadian Nickel (1 million).
For scale, the most common is the 2008 Canadian Nickel with 278.5 million, about 279 times as many. The scarcest is the 1884 Canadian Nickel with 200,000, 5 times fewer than this one.
Compared with the dates around it, the 1885 output was 5 times the 1884 figure and 1.7 times fewer than 1886.
Over the 1880s the Mint produced 11.7 million five cent coins across 10 dates and varieties; the 1885 Canadian Nickel accounts for 8.5% of that.
What to check on your 1885 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.
The mintage covers all three versions, the small 5, the large 5 and the large 5 over small 5. Use a good magnifier and compare the final digit with the 8 beside it. The overdate is the one specialists most want, but every 1885 is a lower mintage date that draws a collector premium. Watch for heavy wear on the last digit, which can make the variety impossible to read. Bright, polished coins are best avoided, since cleaning hides the very details you need to see.
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
| Country | Canada |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 5 cents |
| Issuer | Royal Canadian Mint |
| Year | 1885 |
| Circulation mintage | 1,000,000 |
| Composition | Sterling silver (92.5% silver) |
| Weight | 1.16 g |
| Diameter | 15.5 mm |
| Shape | Round |
| Edge | Reeded |
Frequently asked questions
How do you know which 1885 variety you have?
Compare the height of the final 5 with the 8 next to it. A small 5 is noticeably shorter. If the 5 looks large but has odd outlines or a second curve inside, it may be the large over small overdate.
Is the 1885 a rare year?
With 1,000,000 struck it is not as scarce as 1884, but it is lower than many Victorian dates. Collectors consider it one of the better dates in the series, especially in nicer condition or as the overdate variety.
Mintage figures: Nickel (Canadian coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Canadian Mint figures. How we build these pages.