Why is the "3" Font on 1943 War Nickels different than all the other 3's in the Series
OldEastside
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Why, Why, Why, I gotta Know 
1939
1943
1953 and so on
Steve
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I have noticed that also. Great question.
There are many design changes through the years. I don't if there was a particular reason for this one although it seems that this design was only used during this one year.
http://varietyvista.com/04a JN DD Vol 1/Obverse Design Varieties.htm
Great Question. It looks like through the history of USA coinage the flat top 3 was used very little. Reason??? The Mercury Dime had only 1 flat top 3 and that was brought to my attention by FCloud about 2 months ago on this forum.
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Ken
Good observation. To me the 1939 sort of looks Art Deco style or whatever style was in fashion as the 1930s were winding down. Also, the 1938 and 1939 "3s" might have been a direct carryover from the original design. Once they got into the 40s (and beyond) the prevailing type or font styles might have prevailed.
On a side note, when I search boxes of nickels I can usually tell the general era of the coin from the overall design. The ones that often throw me are 1938 and 1939. I have not taken the time to figure it out yet, but something about the designs (and maybe the style of the date) is more in common with nickels from the mid 80s onward than it is with coins from the 40s and 50s.
Wow. I collect Jefferson’s and never noticed that. Great question. Following. Btw, really like the look of that 39.
My War Nickels https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/nickels/jefferson-nickels-specialty-sets/jefferson-nickels-fs-basic-war-set-circulation-strikes-1942-1945/publishedset/94452
Great Example of another Series Mystery
Steve
Some notations in the few extant Engraver's notebooks indicate that small changes, intended to improve die life or coin detail were made whenever time allowed. (a couple of pages are included in the book United States Proof Coins 1936-1942. There were subtle interactions between central design elements and inscriptions/dates. The engraver might have noticed a problem with test coins and used a different style of "3" to avoid that for circulation pieces. Alloy also made significant differences.
None of the nickel's numerals or inscriptions are in an "Art Deco" style font - for that, look at Schlage's original models. These fonts were not used because they would fill very easily and were probably considered too idiomatic.
Never noticed that.
I always thought it was done so they could sneak in a few 2's underneath.
Buffalo nickels also have that characteristic-flat top for 1913 and 1923 and round top from 1930 to the end of the series.
I can actually see that if the over dates were the first struck, interesting
Steve
Engraver's prerogative as well as die wear considerations. For another anomaly, look at the 1934 cent, which was a year experiment using a descending 3, which didn't come back until 1943.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Hopefully we can find some mint records on these eventually. I agree it’s very interesting.
Thanks for posting the photos!
Good one, never noticed that on the 34, I just looked up a and found on SLQ's the 23 is a flat top and the 30 is regular
Steve
Edited to add the same for the WLH of 1923 (flat top 3) and changes for WLH's of the 30's
Do we know the engravers at the time the war nickels were being issued? It would be interesting to see if we can get a list of names of people who may have done this.
Here is what I found about the flat top 3 that was used on dimes. I did the search a couple of months ago when the topic was brought up in a Mercury Dime thread.
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Just information. Flat Top 3 was used on only these Dime dates. 1803, 1837 LG Date, 1843, 1923 and all of the Roosevelts. Do not think I missed any. Ken
Ken
An interesting subject...certainly one few have given much thought to outside of early coinage series. In digging around I came across work done by David W. Lange in a series of informational articles. Here are links to them. Mr. Lange also has monthly articles in The Numismatist, some of which relate to date digit shapes and positions. (I hope our hosts will understand these are educational, not commercial, articles.) I'm not aware of others doing similar detail research.
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1125/Dancing-with-Dates-Part-One/
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1139/Dancing-with-Dates-Part-Two/
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1151/Dancing-with-Dates-Part-Three/
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1169/Dancing-with-Dates-Part-Four/
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1183/
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1194/Dancing-With-Dates/
I had not seen that series by Lange. Will look into it.
In this first one,
https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1125/Dancing-with-Dates-Part-One/
He talks about the change in the style of the zero from 1909 to 1910. There was actually a good reason for using a wider style zero in 1910, specifically the new skinny third digit "1." Had Barber used a zero of the same width as on the 1909, the total length of the date, including the 1 which is narrower than the 1909's zero, would have been noticeably shorter than the 1909 date.
When I started working for Coin World in late 1973 they were still using an ancient linotype machine to set hot type. It did not automatically justify letter spacing as your computer does today. If you found a correction that had to be made, the correction had to be the same length as the hole you were chiseling out of the hot type, or a bit shorter.
Letter spaces were counted by how wide the letters were. An "n-space" was the average width. An "l-space" was half a letter wide, and an "m-space" was 1-1/2 letters wide.
Thus "wainscote" is 1-1/2 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 letters wide.
"1909" is 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 numerals wide. "1910" with an extra wide zero is 1/2 + 1 + 1/2 + 1-1/2 numerals wide.
As to the random 3's over the years, I would say just artistic license.
TD
Thanks Roger
Steve
RE: "I would say just artistic license."
Who issues these licenses? Have the mint sculptor-engravers not been issued ones? Most modern commemoratives show a lot of "license" by little "artistic."
In the Saint-Gaudens double eagle series a new 4-digit date plus monogram were cut every year beginning with 1910. Yet, digit spacing for some years is not completely harmonious.
The Roman Numerals on the High Relief $20 would have caused greatly varying date lengths if maintained over the life of the series. Look at the dates on the early American Eagle gold coins. Dates range from MCMXC up to MCMLXXXVIII, the latter made tiny to reduce the length.
FYI - The original Peace dollar model had its date in Roman numerals, as did one of Saint-Gaudens' models for the $10 Eagle.
That was the first series to have the date superimposed over design elements (the rays) that I can think of, which would seem to make it preferable to start over with a dateless field upon which a fresh date was engraved.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
OldEastside - This little excerpt from the Engraver's notebook by John Sinnock will give you some idea of the frequency and nature of changes routinely made in coin master hubs. This sample refers to the Washington quarter design.