Why Are Jefferson Nickels Primarily Collected Up To 1964?

I'm sorry, I thought we were originally talking about uncirculated coins after 1964. If we are talking about high grade (MS-65+ full steps) nickels of all dates, then you are certainly correct that the 1950-D's wouldn't climb near the top of the list. My mistake if I took the posting at its word rather than its intent.

"Such as?"

Well, off the top of my head I'd guess there are fewer '71-P, '82-P, '82-D, '83-P, '83-D, '84-P, '86-D, '92-P, '92-D, '93-D, '95-D, and '97-D probably all have lower numbers surviving in unc than the '50-D. There may be a few oters like the '75-D and some of the '90's issues. Even the '86-P can be tough to lay hands on.

If you consider varieties then most of the '82 varieties are far scarcer than the '39-D. In choice condition a lot more dates join the list and in gem there will be more yet.

Prices are low on these because demand is low. Many of the older coins are in collections that end at 1964.

"1964 was sort of a watershed year for U.S. coinage. The change from silver to copper/nickel for the quarters and dimes and the change from 90% silver to 40& silver for the halves caused shortages of those coins because EVERYBODY was hoarding them. The mint jacked up production of the nickel in 1964 to help offset the shortages of the other denominations. Personally, I think 1965 represented the change from "old" to "modern" in U.S. coinage."


There were a lot of changes. Some were incidental but most were structural and many of these were designed primarily to discourage collectors. There was even a bill in Congress which would have simply outlawed collecting new coins. It failed to pass.

The law was really unnecessary since the other measures proved highly effective. This was probably the single biggest change; collectors started ignoring new coins.

It's not just in unc that some of the newer coins will prove elusive. It's also AU and XF. Even nice attractive VF's and F's can be tough for the '65-'73 issues. None of these are really scarce and "nice, attractive" means light even wear on a well struck coin.