A Couple Questions About Errors

1. Die varieties are on the die at the time the die was hung to make coins. The 1955 doubled die was there when the die began making coins, and when it was removed from the press. It is a die variety.

The 1937D 3-legged buffalo is an anomaly caused by a combination of die wear and die overpolishing. It was made as a normal die but was changed during the time it was making coins. It is a die error.

2. Laminations on nickels are common and usually not worth much of a premium unless major. They often reduce the market for a coin, meaning there are fewer people interested in them than normal coins without the planchet problems.

3. Laminations on key date nickels could be a big problem. Far fewer people would want the lamination on the coin as opposed to the far larger number of people who would want to buy a problem free coin.

4. The dealer made it up. There is no such thing. Every lamination is different, even those struck by the same die. Reason being, the lamination is on the planchet before it is struck - it has nothing to do with the die or the strike itself, thus it is not repeated.

My personal opinion - I would not want a key date coin with planchet problems, no matter how cool they were. The price guides reflect values for problem free coins, and to many (including myself) that coin is a problem coin. Just lucky enough it wasn't on the reverse, the central focal area of that particular coin.

Coppercoins and Metalman likely speak for the majority of collectors, but I, for one, like those quirky little problems such as your "warpaint" Indian Head nickel. It's a great example of a lamination, and the error adds to the visual impact of the coin, IMHO.

Is it safer to buy "problem free" coins from an investment viewpoint. Yep. While I appreciate those AU's and MS-6x's, and understand why so many collectors yearn to add them to their collections, I prefer to spice up my collection from time-to-time with a few oddities.

Congratulations of a really cool nickel...enjoy it!

I just wanted to say thanks for giving me honest feedback on my coin. You made me question my decision enough to talk to my favorite dealer about it. He confirmed what you basically said. But he also added I got a very fair price for it, even with the Lamination. He himself wasn't interested in buying it, and neither were 2 other dealers. One of them said, "beautiful coin. it's too bad for the Lamination"

So I decided to return it to the seller, leaving a nice message apologizing and noting it wasn't anything about them. The lady gave a nice reply back, and offered a different Buffalo from stock. They have it on their ebay store, an NGC AU-58 for $1920. I'm still in the market for a problem free Buffalo and I wish I could buy it from her. But that just seems way overpriced judging from Heritage auctions.

So again, thanks for... "keepin it real"

quote:

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I'm suprised that neither dealer was interested in buying the coin.

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The first dealer, who I see regularly had a problem in the past selling a beautiful MS-65 Red 1955 DD Wheat cent, just because it had a planchet clip. He told me if I hung on to it I could probably make a buck or two. It's just hard to sell. The next dealer said he might have a buyer but didn't want it because he didn't know for sure. He said his son is in college and it's too expensive to keep in inventory! The last one is the one who said, "Nah. It's a shame about the lamination because it's a beautiful coin"

I just didn't want to sit on it for weeks/months until I sold it. And time was running out for the return policy.