Definitive Test For Black Beauty Nickels

Nicrob, there are so!Mr of us who would say yes to that, but in truth, not very much. It is indeed a true mint error as recognized by some TPG'S, but because population is unknown, as arevdates uncertain it is hard to put an industry standard rate to them. Those of us who know about them may pay a premium. For instance, I had two up for sale on ebay while back, $10 shipped, no takers. Now I'm glad I didn't sell, nice to have an example. Just received a freebie from T-Bop, thanks! Now have both a 1958 and 1959...wonder how many others are their?

As a side note, check out my new avatar!

Many thanks Crazyb0.

I'd say 58 by what we've seen here although 59 seems in the running too, just got one. Others are out there, but apparently not very frequent.

All my books are in storage ... and 900 miles away.
So from memory ...

The Black Beauty craze was big around 1958 and 1959. Being
reported in the news made more people watch for them. My
thought is, that why we see more from those years. From
what I understand collectors were finding them in new mint
bags. There are other years, not just 1958 and 1959 ..

See post above. (1955)

Not sure which book I read it in, maybe this one.



I have several that I feel are BB's .. but don't have
access to them right now. So can't check the years.
The best two I sent into ANACS a while back, maybe someday
I will send in more.

I think for these ... to be sure ..
they should be sent into a TPG. But the price of having
them authenticated could be more than the value of the coin.

Here is the other I have slabbed. Sorry I don't have close
up pics at this time/

Very nice!

I came across an old Jefferson nickel album of mine....and look what I see!

This is what I and some others believe to be a genuine 1959 P Black Beauty.....Showed next to a AU58 1970 D nickel for comparison. Let me know what you think.







*Lighter in person. So shiny, changes shade in different lights.

Here is my 1959 Black Beauty nickel in an AU58 PCGS slab and trueview photo. The slab confirms the sintered planchet. I got this coin raw from a CCF member from a contest. Anyway, looking at the coin, it has really good luster, but a lot of what looks like scratches. However, the edges of the 'scratches' do not have raised edges as if it was PMD, but actually look mushed over. I think that they were in the planchet but did not get removed during minting. I think this could be caused if the planchet was much harder than normal. Characteristic of most Black Beauties I have seen, Tom seems to have a beard (see close-up photo), which I presume is some sort extreme die deteriation. The details on the reverse are very mushy.