1938 Nickel

Hello Mr. Willy, the 1938 nickel is an underrated coin in higher grades, however still plenty available in circulated condition without much effort if you are searching E-bay. I was fortunate to recently acquire an I.C.C.S., MS-64 example of this coin in which there is only 1 known higher graded.
Current population reports for I.C.C.S. show less than 300 mintstate examples and less than 160 circulated examples, for this T.P.G. company.
Even current C.C.N. trends have this coin at $1,000.00 in MS-64 and a whopping $8,000.00 in MS-65!! I would think this semi-Key date coin is a sleeper in the MS-64 grade which is why I spent many years hunting for a nice example. With a mintage of less than 4 million it's comparable in elusiveness to the nickels of the King George V Era. At present, of the 48>1938 nickels listed on E-bay, only one is an MS-64.
A good buy for the smart shopper considering a tough coin to acquire in ultra high grades. (and an awesome future investment).

Glenn

I think the ICCS population reports also reflect the habits of some Canadian dealers who are snapping up NGC, ICG and other nicer coins in US TPG holders, cracking them out and submitting them to ICCS. The conservative grading of ICCS has crept upwards over the past three years, and dealers don't hesitate to buy coins that might have a shot at an 'upgrade' in the Canadian market. The old adage still applies, buy the coin, not the holder.

The 1938 nickel is a good one to keep - it is very difficult to find in conditions of mintstate or better. When I am looking at coins from 1937 - current - I look for the tail of the beaver to have all of the crisscross lines kind of like a file - if those are present on a coin than it is typically mintstate.

This is exactly the problem with "conditon census" coins. They're worth big bucks until more are found. It's like investing by low mintage figures, except TPGs can always "make" more, while the gubmint won't.

The classics are the 1903-4-O silver dollars. They were considered rare dates until a mint bag or three were found one Christmas, and the RedBook on the 04 dropped from $40 to common, and the 03 went from $1500 to $30.

MS65 Morgans used to be $400+ until people realized there were 55,000+ 81s alone, and today it takes 66 to bring that much.

Another recent example is the $20 gold shipwreck coins. These were considered rare, because most of them were on the bottom of the ocean. The promoters selling them are doing everything possible to keep prices high, but once their supply is gone, people wanting to sell their "investment grade" shipwreck coins will discover they are very plentiful, and sell for slightly more than bullion.

Here is mine:







Its not the best, but I love it!

Could you show us some pictures? That might help us answer your question.