Why Are 1992-P Nickels Valuable?

Thanks for the interest. This was my original intention.

In '70's and '80's I always used to tell people that most moderns were far scarcer than generally presumed and this went many times over for nice attractive and well made specimens. Most people had the idea that there were countless millions of perfect Gems for every date because mintages were astronomical.

But mostly they told me that even if they were as scarce as I claimed that nobody would collect them because there were countless millions in circulation. Since those days attrition has devastated both the small supply of chBU coins and the number of coins in circulation. Not only are the survivors worn and most damaged but these poor specimens can be very hard to find because of attrition.

Still very few people collect these.

More accurately many millions of folders for circulating coins have been sold since 1999 when the general public came on board with collecting states coins in circulation and many of these folders and albums are being worked. There are quite a few (perhaps as many as half a million) people collecting these coins whom mostly are outside the hobby. They buy the folders in book stores or coin shops but have little interest beyond finding a nice 1992 nickel in circulation. It might be these people starting to create a market in BU rolls and singles. They're fast turning into real collectors but are still largely invisible in the hobby.

I don't know. I find this all as surprising as Brandmeister does. But no matter what, this is a most unusual situation where the coins of the last 60 years have been mostly ignored by collectors. This may never change though and the behavior of the '92 nickel a mere aberration.

History didn't stop in 1965 and neither did mint production. I still believe even after all these years that there will be a demand for moderns at some point in the future.

It would be interesting if someone had a couple thousand dollars to waste to just buy every single coin like the '92-P nickel that is advertised on the net. I'm pretty sure it would affect the price temporarily as sellers try to restock where there is no ready supply. Of course it would take a great deal more money to keep the price high because mint sets dismantling would increase. I imagine one would end up with $25 worth of nickels for which he paid $2000.

But if people copycatted the buying then it would be easy to keep the price elevated and increasing.

Yes. I have found it particularly appalling that uncirculated sets for the last 30-40 years don't even have full steps nickels or full torch dimes. How hard would it be to pull the early die state coins for the sets?

You will become a millionaire if you have 20 million 1992-P nickels.

Moderns are so easy to grade I'm surprised this is holding them back but I'm sure it is. I just grade them Unc, chBU, gemmy, and Gem. Uncs are ugly with multiple problems. "chBU" are fully lustrous but have several problems. "Gemmy" are on the scarce side and are fairly well centered and fairly well struck by pretty good dies. They aren't all banged up. "Gemmy" just is the lowest grade most people want clad coins. A few are MS-63 but most are MS-64 or better. "Gem" just means every attribute is superior. Many of the coins the services call MS-65 and a few MS-66 I don't consider fully Gem usually because they aren't well struck by new dies.

Grading isn't much of an issue for moderns because there aren't any "messed with" coins or coins with bad surfaces. Novices certainly shouldn't be paying more than small premiums for Gems until, they get a feel for what's available or buy them graded.

You may well be right that a very inexpensive grading service would help. One of the problems with these markets is that the guides list ridiculously low prices but then they say that coins have to be graded to get these prices. This makes a list price of $10 for a coin a negative valuation in the real world because people think after they spend $20 to grade the coin it's worth only $10.

These markets have been suppressed for many years and some of it is quite intentional. People have the crazy notion that any money spent on a modern comes right out of the value of a bust half dollar. It would never cross their minds that the money for grading coins takes money out of the market but the notion of someone paying ten dollars for a coin worth minus ten dollars is the end of civilization as we know it. And this is exactly why they paint moderns as having less than no value at all. But one of these days some modern will go up and not come back down. The '92-P nickel is scarcer than the '50-D but this can't keep the price up because the guides say they are negatively valued even in nice condition. But the '92-P is not so easy to find without lots of scratches. They come nice quite often but even the nice ones often have a lot of marking. Only about 8 or 10% are nice and gemmy AND have little marking. This makes these tough enough that collectors can stress the supply if many wanted to upgrade the coin in their collection.

1992-P usually comes as a very baggy coin out of Mint Sets that year. If I'm lucky when I cut that set I get a 1992-P MS-64 SHARP STRIKE with NO complete full steps. If I actually get an MS-65 that's jackpot. The 1992-D nickel is usually even worse. There's just something about those 1992 to 1995 and then 1997 & 1998 Mint Sets as to why are just so darn baggy. Literally a lot of those coins in Mint Sets for those years are just pocket change. That's one reason why we dealers buy them on the cheap if we have to buy a whole bunch of all at once. If we need the singles we have to account for the fact that were are also buying a lot of stuff that needs to go straight to the bank.

Here's a coin shop offering the '92-P roll for $200!