1968 Canadian Nickel Dollar, mintage 5,579,714. The dollar changed to nickel in order to make coining easier in the harder metal the diameter was also reduced. The grading starts at MS-63 for trend values, nickel is harder then silver and last a lot longer and dose not wear much. Not too many people carried around nickel dollars in thier change and really did not start untill the Loon Dollar appeared in 1987. So the most marks you will see on nickel dollars are bag marks (from going down shuts at the mint and being in bags on the way to banks) and also the deep scratches. So we really do not have any specific rules for grading. So for the nickel series we are just going to say MS condition. The coin shown here is in MS condition and can have a trend value starting at $10.00, the same value for ones minted for non-circulation. There were also 5 different varieties for this year, 1968 Normal, 1968 Small Island, 1968 No Island, 1968 DHL 1 and 1968 DHL 2.