1917 Buffalo Nickel, Unslabbed

MS62

Lighting is the reason panzaldi.

Nice coin, with a strong date, LIBERTY, and USA.

The 1917 Buffs are an interesting lot. There are a lot of mint state survivors, but not a lot of truly beautiful mint state coins. The strike quality is generally good, but all three mints managed to make a mess of the minting process in 1917. Philadelphia produced several oddities, including one variety with nearly a coast-to-coast die break across the Indian's face and several badly overpolished dies, including one missing the designer's initial, one missing the third feather, and one missing both the third feather and most of the neck. Many 1917 mint state coins are a bit mushy on the strike. Many have a gun metal appearance. It's definitely not one of my favorite dates in the series. Coins with full strike, few bag marks, and excellent luster do exist, but not in abundance, and command justifiable premiums.

Your coin has an average strike and eye appeal for the date. There is some softness in the strike. The obverse soft points include the hairline at the cheek and the detail on the Indian's hair. The reverse soft points include the tip of the tail and the front legs. These soft spots are not unusual and would not be enough to drop-grade the coin.

The reverse has very few bag marks. There is overall a good appearance on the reverse. The obverse is a bit tougher. Two parallel scratches run NE-SW across the Indian's hair. These are right in the visual center of the coin, and will drive the grading. I see the reverse grading MS 64, and the obverse grading MS 63, with a blended grade of MS 63. If this coin is slabbed in an older slab, I could very well see an older grade in the MS 65 range. I don't think it would rise above 63 or 64 today.

Panzaldi,

these are all from the same seller. I haven't bought any from him yet. Not sure why they all look the same. The fields are all very clear for the most part.

Could be an AU-58 'slider', hard to tell from these pics.