1894 Canadian Nickel
The 1894 Canadian Nickel is a Canadian nickel struck for circulation with 500,000 made. Value band: small premium. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 1894
- Circulation mintage
- 500,000
- Value band
- Small premium
- 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 1894 Canadian Nickel worth?
At 500,000, the 1894 Canadian Nickel has a smaller run than most Canadian nickels, so collectors pay a small premium for it, especially in uncirculated condition. Well circulated examples sit close to face value.
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 1894 Canadian Nickel rare?
- It is scarcer than most Canadian nickels. Collectors pay a small premium for good examples.
- How many 1894 Canadian nickels were made?
- 500,000 were struck for circulation.
- What is the 1894 Canadian Nickel made of?
- Sterling silver (92.5% silver). It weighs 1.16 g and measures 15.5 mm.
- Is the 1894 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 1894 nickel in context
Just 500,000 five cents are dated 1894, all from the Royal Mint in London. That ties it with 1887 as the second lowest Victorian mintage after 1884. What makes this year stand out further is what followed: no five cents at all were struck in 1895. The 1894 coins and earlier stock had to carry the country until the 1896 order arrived. Five cents had been struck every year since 1880, so the pause that followed 1894 was the first break in fifteen years.
The early 1890s were hard years for the economy across North America and smaller coin orders are no surprise in that climate. Whatever the cause, 1894 was the smallest order of the decade and the low mintage means the coin is seen far less often than its neighbors. Among the late Victorian dates it is the one most collectors identify as the key and it is one of the harder spaces to fill in a set. It also comes with a neat bit of trivia: it is the coin that had to tide Canada over the missing year.
How to recognize it
The obverse is Victoria crowned, with VICTORIA DEI GRATIA REGINA CANADA running around the edge. The reverse puts 5 CENTS and the date in the middle of a maple leaf wreath with a crown at the top. As a London striking it has no mint mark. The coin is sterling silver at about 1.16 g. By this point the portrait was the same one used since 1870, which is why the queen still looks young even though she had reigned for more than fifty years. The coin has a reeded edge, worth checking on any suspect piece since a filed or smooth edge can betray tampering.
1894 Canadian Nickel by the numbers
By the numbers, the 1894 Canadian Nickel ranks 4th lowest of 161 Canadian nickel dates and varieties from 1858 to 2024. The next scarcer is the 1887 Canadian Nickel (500,000); the next more common is the 1898 Canadian Nickel (580,717).
For scale, the most common is the 2008 Canadian Nickel with 278.5 million, about 557 times as many. The scarcest is the 1884 Canadian Nickel with 200,000, 2.5 times fewer than this one.
Compared with the dates around it, the 1894 output was 3.4 times fewer than 1893 and 3 times fewer than 1896.
Over the 1890s the Mint produced 12.3 million five cent coins across 9 dates and varieties; the 1894 Canadian Nickel accounts for 4.1% of that.
What to check on your 1894 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.
Make sure the last digit is really a 4. A worn 1891 or 1899 can be misread and dates have been altered on scarce Victorian silver. A clear, genuine 1894 carries a collector premium in any grade. Look for natural toning and avoid coins with bright, polished surfaces, which collectors discount heavily. Ask yourself whether the wear is even across both sides; an altered date often sits in an area that looks fresher or rougher than the rest. Holes and bends are also common on a coin this size and reduce its appeal sharply.
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 | 1894 |
| Circulation mintage | 500,000 |
| Composition | Sterling silver (92.5% silver) |
| Weight | 1.16 g |
| Diameter | 15.5 mm |
| Shape | Round |
| Edge | Reeded |
Frequently asked questions
Why are there no 1895 five cents?
Canada simply did not order any five cents dated 1895. The coins dated 1894 and earlier years were enough for demand. Production resumed with 1,500,000 coins dated 1896 after the one year gap.
Is the 1894 a key date?
It is one of the scarcest Victorian five cents, with 500,000 struck. Only the 1884 has a lower figure and the 1887 has the same total, so collectors treat 1894 as one of the key dates of the series.
Mintage figures: Nickel (Canadian coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Canadian Mint figures. How we build these pages.