Why Are 1992-P Nickels Valuable?

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Must be hard to find in mint state.

Many moderns were not saved in substantial numbers. When mint sets exist there are always "plenty" of them but remember many coins are tied up in these sets and not yet available for collectors. The rolls go for $18 because the paltry demand outweighs available supply. So long as the price stays so low there is little incentive to cut up sets.

Eventually collectors will discover that this date and many other moderns are scarcer than the '50-D nickel and then the demand will increase.

The '92-D is an object lesson in why there is so little demand for this coin. It's just as scarce or scarcer than the Philly and the RedBook lists it at 25 cents in chBU condition. That's only $10 a roll and everyone knows all the older coins are listed at double or more of their real value so they assume this coin is distressingly common little realizing it's most probably scarcer than the '50-D.

Nobody wants to collect distressingly common coins so there's almost no demand for any moderns. Coins like attractive chBU '84 cents are probably 10 times scarcer than chBU '31-S cents. RedBook lists this one at 30 cents in Gem. Attractive Gems are very very scarce apparently; far scarcer than Gem '31-s cents probably and it lists for 30c. Markets can't develop without price guides. It might be better if they all just quit listing moderns altogether.

Collectors have the mind set that the higher the mintage the more common the coin. This was true up until 1965 but not since. The number saved is determined more by the whims of a relative handful of entities that set aside coins.

Everyone used to set aside a roll or two if they got them and higher mintages meant more people got them and saved them. Today anyone can get as many as they want but almost nobody wants them.

All the moderns are "readily available" or "common" so the authors of these words are not "wrong". The problem is calling '92-P nickels "common" is highly misleading. People imagine they are as common as late date Wheat cent rolls or bicentennial quarters. A few moderns were saved in the multi-millions so are obviously quite common but most were very lightly saved. The low price of $18 per roll would indicate an exceedingly common coin if we compare it to an equally valuable older roll like the 1955-P. This coin was saved in enormous numbers and most are still in pristine condition. It's worth $18 per roll not because it is hard to find but because millions of people want one. It is demand that drives price. But the number of '92-P nickels is far lower. There aren't 3,000,000 nice BU's and another 3,000,000 that have seen varying degrees of circulation. Rather there aren't even one million and there are another 250,000,000 badly circulated ones Of course some of them are nice VF's or XF's that can be found without too much effort. The $18 price of the '92 coin is that there is tiny demand. The demand is so tiny that most dealers will just put BU's rolls in the cash register so the attrition on these is far higher than on older coins.

Many people believe moderns are too common to be collected so very few do. There are better dates than the '92's to spend $18 but it's so hard to find most modern rolls that you have to take what's available or what you need for your collection. Mostly it's collectors pushing these prices higher but I am seeing more and more dealers beginning to stock these coins. APMEX sells this roll but is currently sold out. This is part of the problem with these markets as well; obtaining supplies in such thin markets. Between collectors overlooking them, unrealistically low catalog prices, and lack of availability it's almost impossible for a market to arise.

There are still half a million in mint sets most of which are nice specimens so don't get the idea these are "scarce" in the old sense of the term. They are simply scarcer than '50-D nickels. Almost the entire mintage of '50-D's were saved while most of the mintage of moderns went into circulation. With a 30 year life expectancy many of these coins are getting difficult to find in any condition. Some 70% of issues like '69 dimes have already met their maker. When you do find a '69 dime in circulation it requires a lot of effort and the coins will be heavily worn and cull. Most of the '69 mint sets are long gone, rolls weren't saved, and the few mint sets surviving will have tarnished dimes.

Collectors fixate on coins made before 1964.

If collectors are starting to buy such coins by the roll I'm just wondering where the supply can possibly come from. Certainly almost every roll other than cents must come from mint sets because people didn't save many moderns but a lot of these mint sets are almost all gone now days. Where can you buy "50" 1971 mint set to assemble a roll of dimes? If you can find the sets you'll quickly discover that you'll need a great number more because most of these coins that have sat in plastic for more than half a century are tarnished.

Obviously not many collectors really "need" a roll of 1971 dimes or '92 nickels so most can just buy a single for their collection. This will put a cap on the demand for rolls.

I simply find it exciting that if a roll of "common" coins that usually comes nice can go for $45 (retail) what will happen to tough dates that usually come ugly?

I want to remind everyone that these markets are extremely thin so a single individual could be buying up every roll he sees and have an outsized effect on the market. Right now you could probably buy every available 1992 mint set for less than $10,000 and if you do it suddenly it would cause a spike in the price. This spike would not sustainable though because there is a steady small flow of these coming on the market. You could corner the supply of all the coins in the '92 set for less than a couple million dollars if all of the sets were available for sale. All moderns are very widely distributed. There are only a very few exceptions where one or a few individuals hold a large percentage of the supply. These include issues like the WI quarter varieties and tyhe '82-NMM dimes.

Not really, but remember these were discovered while still in distribution so several individuals were able to track down a lot of coins. Since they were reported so early this allowed others to buy up rolls that might contain as many as about "8" each. I'd guess a few hundred individuals held 75% of the mintage. A few found substantial numbers which I presume they still hold.

The '82-NMM was even worse because it wasn't reported immediately. There are more large hoards of these.

Hoarders sell into demand until their supply is depleted which puts a cap on price. But there are no hoarders of '92 nickels. Price is determined by availability and the weak demand.

As with all moderns though the WI varieties rarely come into coin shops in "old" collections because people never collected moderns. If a modern collection did come into a coin shop in the last 60 years it was likely just put in the cash register.