Experiment With Nickels

I posted this on the "other" forum and got a cool reaction, to put it mildly so I'm posting here. This is barely an experiment, it's more like comparing numbers. In the last 100 days, I have found 111 1938-1960 Jefferson nickels in circulation. Some came from the cash register, some came from rolls, and some came directly from customers. They are in a variety of conditions. I thought I'd share the results. Here are the numbers of nickels that I found for each year (mintmarks are not a part of this experiment):

1938 0
1939 2
1940 7
1941 11
1942 1 (cupronickel)
1943 2
1944 0
1945 0
1946 10
1947 2
1948 6
1949 2
1950 0
1951 2
1952 2
1953 3
1954 4
1955 4
1956 4
1957 5
1958 10
1959 15
1960 19

Observations:

It's not surprising that the largest number of nickels that I found were 1960s, which are rarely collected.

The jump from 1957 to 1958 is interesting. The fact that the number kept rising for '59 is interesting as well.

There were a lot of nickels made in 1941 and 1946, and this list shows. There were lots of 1940s too.

The 1938 must have been hoarded when they were new, or collected because they were the first year of the new coin. There weren't as many made that year than in later years, which contributes to its rarity in circulation, but I've never found a single one but I have found buffalo and V nickels in circulation, which suggests that the '38s didn't circulate very much.

No 1950s. Again, not a surprise.

If I had included 1964 nickels in this experiment, half of all my nickels would have been '64s. I don't keep them when I find them so I have no idea how many I have found, but it has to be in the dozens.

I know this was only a sample of 111 nickels, but some surveys you read about in the media have fewer respondents. I'm not claiming that it is anything more than comparing statistics on a small sample of coins. I found some of the numbers to be rather interesting. I hope it is enlightening.

Comments?

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