Nickel Find Rates @ 210,000 Coins

I recently passed through 210,000 USA nickels searched .. That's 5250 rolls . $10,500 face value.

Here is my usual 10,000 coin rate find update ..

Overall Find Rate:

Recall that I consider a 'find' to be any nickel minted prior to 1960 .. so 1959 is the earliest date I will keep.

Overall find rate is 1.287% .. that is 1 find every 77.7 raw coins on average .. and an average of 25.7 find per $200 box.

Total 'finds' to date are 2,703 circulated nickels .. Which have long ago presented storage/organizing issues. Unless they are in my humble Whitman 9009 .. the coins are stored in Crown Royal whiskey sacks ... not the best way to manage things. Perhaps it's time to shed some .. 'keep the best and shed the rest'?

Jefferson Find Rates by Decade:

Current find rates by decade are as follows:
• 1930's: 1 find every 1780 coins
• 1940's (exclude war silver): 1 find every 211 coins
• 1950's: 1 find every 141 coins

'Special Coin' Find Rates:

Recall that I consider 'special coins' to be any of the following; Pre-Jefferson nickels, War Silver and any of the nine 'key' Jefferson with less than 10 million annual mintage.

• Liberty V: 1 every 105,000 coins (found 2)
o Note . Just found my third ever at 211,200 coins . See my post in the nickel thread for photo!
• Buffalo: 1 every 6,363 coins (found 33)
• War Silver : 1 every 3,231 coins (found 65)
• Key Jefferson: 1 every 7,500 coins (found 28).

Overall 'special coin' find rate is 1 find every 1,641 coins searched and it's always a thrill to come across one of these beauties.

Fun Finds:

In the 10,000 coins since my previous update, I have come across the following fun finds .

• 1943-S (War Silver) in XF-40 as an upgrade to my collection.
• 1955-D in AU-50 as an upgrade to my collection.
• 2000-D 'Generic Capped Die' error (see my separate post in the Error/Variety forum).
• 6 total War Silver
• 1 Buffalo
• 10 or so MS-65+ FS 2010-P Jefferson

Circulation Obsolescence:

I'm making the assumption that by now that the theory behind this statistic is well know by all regular readers of this update. Newbies can ask questions or refer to previous updates for a hyperlink to the base topic.

Sooooo .

Overall 1938-1959 Jefferson Circulation Obsolescence is 81.16%
• 1930's: 81.61%
• Pre-War 1940's: 81.68%
• War Silver: 98.14%
• Post-War 1940's: 78.69%
• Early 1950's: 74.29%
• Late 1950's: 67.40%

Circulation Estimates Based on Obsolescence:

I was wiped-out in 3 minutes on my contest for this topic .. and the knowledgeable winner made off with a PCGS MS66 War Nickel!

Sooooo .. next time you hit a dry spell in your nickel roll searching .. consider the following .

Estimated Number of War Silver in circulation is 16,178,000
Estimated Number of Buffalo in circulation is 8,404,00

Status of my Quest:

I began this search in Feb 2008 .. and 210,000 coins later it has become a quest to complete my humble Whitman 9009 folder with circulation-strike Jefferson's 1938-1961 from local bank rolls.

Still need two .. arrgh . 1938-S and 1943-D.

Final Thoughts:

For those reading about nickel roll searching for the first time .. I commend to you the joy and variety that can be discovered in this pleasurable pursuit.

IMHO . This is the only current circulating USA coin series over 50 years old where one can reasonably expect to complete the set from change . at face value.

I commend to all the humble nickel .. and wish for you many happy days of searching for them.

David