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The Chinese and the Bactrian (Bactria was an ancient country in the northern part of present-day Afghanistan) used a cupro-nickel coinage more than 2,000 years ago, but abandoned the process.
It was not until the discovery of argentite (the main ore for silver) during the first half of the 19th century that using nickel as a coinage metal again was considered.
In 1850, Switzerland was the first modern country to use a nickel-containing coinage alloy, and later it was also the first country to use pure nickel for coinage. In 1879, an alloy containing 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel was used. This alloy was known as cupro-nickel.
The largest pure nickel coin was the 20 francs of Belgium, weighing 20 grams. The smallest is the 10 cent produced by the Netherlands, weighing only 1.5 grams.
Presently, over 175 countries, territories, confederations and states produce and circulate over 1,000 denominations of coins made of pure nickel and nickel alloys.
It is largely due to the Swiss that both pure nickel and cupro-nickel dominate the coinage of the world today.
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