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 Replies: 11 / Views: 16,276 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6464 Posts |
Jefferson nickel cheat sheet, 1960-2003 Hey guys, can you check my homework on nickels? I do roll hunting—certainly not in the volumes of others here—and I want a few quick reference cards. Something to keep right on the sorting table as I'm going through nickels by decade. Am I missing any major varieties here? A * means keep examples in high AU condition. * 1961, 1961-D * 1962, 1962-D 1962 DDR E Pluribus 1963 TDR E Pluribus 1964 DDO In God We Trust 1964 D/D south 1970-D DDO letters, star 1975 high-D * 1982, 1983, 1984 P,D 2004-P handshake DDO letters 2004-P speared bison Open Questions:The guide books list higher prices for MS 1970s than MS 1960s. Are there 1970s nickels worth keeping in high AU states? Any other 1960s nickels to keep in AU? What is the sensible cutoff for 1982-1984 examples? High AU? Low AU? MS-only? Are there any other 1980s nickels worth saving? Some guides also emphasize 1985-1987 as lesser than 82-83 but still worth something. Are there any 1990s or 2000-2003 nickels to be kept in MS grade that are NOT full steps? How low does a mint mark have to be to get tucked away in a flip as interesting? Same question for high mint mark. Are the 1968, 1969 S/S west only on proofs? 1971-S DDR? My current roll searching process:When I crack rolls, typically 10 rolls for 400 nickels total, I will sort them quickly into piles: 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00-03, 04-05 LAP, 06-23 BU, 06-23 heavily circulated, and a damaged pile of junk nickels. I immediately set aside any pre-00 nickels that visibly appear to be full steps. Then I examine each group with an iPad and magnifier. 20 at a time, I check all nickel reverses for full steps, all lettering for doubling, the rim and devices for die cracks and chips. Then flip them over to heads and check lettering, date, mint mark, F.S. initials, rim. I save the all four LAP-type nickels in rolls, just because I think that will be fun for future generations. Unless they are cruddy, then they get tossed into the filthy/damaged pile straight off. I also save all full steps 1990s and 2000-2003 MS nickels with no major blemishes. Lastly, I save gleaming BU 2006-2023 new issues in pristine condition with full steps. Right now I toss back all 1990-2023 nickels that aren't keepers. But I have peanut jars of 60s-90s growing fuller. I would like to start releasing these back into circulation. What I don't want to do is toss those jars and then later realize I should have been scanning them for a few specific varieties, especially subtle ones that might get overlooked when zipping through 20 at a time. Later I will do 1940-1959, as there just seems to be way more detail about varieties to watch for. I have fewer of those, so I'm not in any particular rush to get them wrapped and redeemed.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2200 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1648 Posts |
You can take a look at this complete list, look at Nickel Doubled Die Listings selector on the top bar https://www2.briansvarietycoins.com/Realistically, I might start with whats in the book strike it rich with pocket change 5th edition and your list https://www.amazon.com/Strike-Rich-...p/0593328604 From there you can use the above or Variety Vistas list to lookup other nickels if you have time to see if they have anything also. http://varietyvista.com/index.htmYou can also get the upcoming book (Aug 1st) CherryPickers Guide 6th Edition Volume II from whitman.com, this volume will cover nickels if you plan to do this regularly. Strike it rich is a more all in one book and easier for beginners I would imagine as a first choice as cherrypickers is going to be broken into 3 different books. https://whitman.com/cherrypickers-g...6th-edition/What I did was the very long way which was writing down mentioned varieties/errors and their values, including some ebay sold values such as in the pocket change market report of Blueridgesilverhound on youtube sometimes to get some ideas of actual values. I then looked up coins sold in auction history of heritage auctions and greatcollections etc as needed, also worthpoint shows older ebay listings but you have to pay to get pricing except in a week trial.. and ebay sold listings or terapeak. there are many ways to research values. As far as pricing questions like high au, ms etc I would use PCGS graded value price guide https://www.PCGS.com/prices , NGC https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/united-states/ , or Numismedia http://m.numismedia.com/rarecoinprices.htm to answer those questions in general, or even the Red Book https://www.amazon.com/Guide-United.../0794850146/ This is because everyone will have different amounts of time to invest in looking, interest in doing so ongoing, and what value is worthwhile to look for. Edited by datadragon
06/10/2023 4:34 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3207 Posts |
Instead of 1961-D and 1962-D, I'd look to save AU+ 1967, 1968-D, 1968-S, 1969-S, 1971 since they are relatively lower mintages.
For 1982-1984, any AU+ from an early die state are keepers because the dies were grossly overworked those years.
Rather than save all MS full steppers, you might limit the quantity to, say, one roll of each date and mint mark. When you find another example, replace a lower grading one in that roll with a higher grading one. If you don't set a limit, you will become overloaded with low-MS nickels.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6464 Posts |
The Cherrypicker's Guide is 250 years of U.S. coinage over 320 pages. I imagine that Jefferson nickels 1938-2023 is going to be like 2 pages of that book, tops. I checked out a Red Book from the library. It's a general reference. For AU Jeffs, it's basically a very long list of 5c and 10c values, except for varieties. The variety listings are, of course, incomplete. Same with the blue book. The PCGS listing is a long list of $0 punctuated by a few recent values that I cannot believe. Like someone will give me $5 for a MS63 2014-D Jeff FS? Get outta town. =P Or someone paid $1000 for 67+ 2012 regular ol' Jeff? VV and Wexler are philosophically very cool, but they have dozens of very tiny listings that might require a microscope to see properly. I did learn, however, to check the Monticello center door frame on all nickels post-2006. I'm aiming for an index card. I think it can be done with the information culled from multiple sources, if I can get a few questions figured out. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1648 Posts |
These are the varieties for example that NGC will recognize, others would have to go to anacs or sold raw https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plu...6550/?page=1Quote:
The PCGS listing is a long list of $0 punctuated by a few recent values that I cannot believe. Like someone will give me $5 for a MS63 2014-D Jeff FS? Get outta town. =P Or someone paid $1000 for 67+ 2012 regular ol' Jeff?
On occasion with nickels and most modern coins, the top pop highest grade or two max may hold some value while lower grades generally dont if you look. Sometimes people will send in hoping for the top pop, but otherwise they can lose money compared to the grading fees which is why its a bit like gambling. Yes for registry set collectors they will pay for the top coins. And yes those are graded values with PCGS/NGC so someone might have paid but got a poor result and therefore now has a $5 graded coin value they paid much more to grade it. Quote:I checked out a Red Book from the library. It's a general reference. For AU Jeffs, it's basically a very long list of 5c and 10c values, except for varieties. The variety listings are, of course, incomplete. Same with the blue book. VV and Wexler are philosophically very cool, but they have dozens of very tiny listings that might require a microscope to see properly. I did learn, however, to check the Monticello center door frame on all nickels post-2006. The Red Book also doesn't have all the range of Mint State values, so a top graded one can be much higher than what is shown in that guide. It also may help if say a low mint state is only worth $1 than obviously a lower grade is likely not worth the trouble other than a album type set. The prices tend to be retail and a bit out of date but is useful for comparison such as which coins are more worthwhile than others value wise. The variety listings are incomplete in Red Book and thats where those books may help. The web sites do offer further info on what to look for, but again not all of them hold value due to being modern nickels so why I started with the ones in the strike it rich book and those mentioned in the ngc/PCGS guides that they recognize and may hold some value first.. Edited by datadragon
06/10/2023 7:11 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19120 Posts |
Excellent breakdown, datadragon.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6464 Posts |
Quote:
On occasion with nickels and most modern coins, the top pop highest grade or two max may hold some value while lower grades generally dont if you look. Sometimes people will send in hoping for the top pop, but otherwise they can lose money compared to the grading fees which is why its a bit like gambling. So is that what people are doing when they send current year coins for grading? Basically trying a volume game to get a gem coin for registry collectors? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1648 Posts |
Quote:
On occasion with nickels and most modern coins, the top pop highest grade or two max may hold some value while lower grades generally dont if you look. Sometimes people will send in hoping for the top pop, but otherwise they can lose money compared to the grading fees which is why its a bit like gambling.
So is that what people are doing when they send current year coins for grading? Basically trying a volume game to get a gem coin for registry collectors? That can be one reason, and also that top pop coins in some cases are valuable to sell at a profit relatively soon after and they can do bulk submissions. However modern coins are clearly not a good hold and sell later investment. The coins will decline in value if you hold them over time, but its not solely because the populations go up as more are found in that grade, but because with high value coins the populations go up at a rate faster than the number of collectors that are willing to buy at that high cost and participate in high end registry sets therefore the price lowers as the next group of buyers/registry set collectors are only willing to spend a bit less. Unless a collector who bought one of the high value coins likes one better and wants to upgrade or thinks a second coin is a good investment, hes not going to be buying. Classic coins on the other hand can sometimes already have many of the examples graded and so its less likely that other examples will pop up when the value was high enough that most would have already submitted if they thought it was worthwhile. The other thing to keep in mind is to look at the census (number graded in that grade). Many coins do have very high top pop values going back a few years or more, but if the census is 1 or just a few in that top grade, its unlikely that sending in will net you that grade and so if lower grades dont also exceed the grading costs, be careful to not get sucked into those chasing top pop finds with like 1-5 of them only. Edited by datadragon
06/10/2023 10:07 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6464 Posts |
Just so you guys know that I'm doing my homework: The basis of my short list was Red Book, filtered by blue book, then rounded out with the NGC varieties list (which someone helpfully linked in a prior thread). The NGC list corresponded better to Cherrypicker's Guide, as I understand it, without the high detail of Wexler. I also went through Variety Vista. 1970-2024, the main DDO are 1971, 2022. 2006-2023 DDR are basically lines in center Monticello door. 1970-D, 1972-D, 1989-D, 1991-P, 1991-D DDR are all so subtle that I'm not sure I could spot them with a cheap lens on a circulated coin. 1981-D DDR honestly looks like Machine Doubling to me, but I'm still learning. 1960-1968 DDO / DDR has so much going on that it kind of amounts to "check everything", but most of the 60s nickels in my jar are worn to the point where tiny details are probably lost. The PCGS and other price lists are where the confusion sets into my short list. There appear to be AU and low MS nickels for $1-5, but actual sales seem thin. It's hard to tell if I should be saving those or tossing those. Hence the questions above. Edit: forgot Bowers. I own that book on nickels, and went through the whole thing year by year. Edited by Brandmeister
06/10/2023 10:12 pm
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Moderator
 United States
94892 Posts |
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Just so you guys know that I'm doing my homework: Making sure you are ready for that pop quiz or final exam?  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6464 Posts |
Quote:
Making sure you are ready for that pop quiz or final exam? Jest if you will, but 25 years after college, I still have a recurring nightmare where I am forced to take an exam for a class which I have largely missed.  Guess I need a coin-related slang for "critique my thinking".  |
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Replies: 11 / Views: 16,276 |
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Posted 06/10/2023 4:24 pm
