Steps On Nickels

Well if your roll searching, it is unlikely that you would need to count the number of steps because you would be mostly be handling worn coins which often will not have many steps present. The dealers were probably talking about the number of complete steps on the base of Monticello. A nickel that has at least 5 complete uninterrupted steps would receive the Full Steps designation. Generally this is given to unc coins. There are several dates from the 60's that are very difficult to find with FS and thus are very valuable.

I found this 1940 in one of my first boxes while roll searching.







Not quite full steps, but you can find old nickels in pretty amazing condition in circulation.