Another Great CoinWeek Article.

cladking

It's not Charles Morgan but it's extremely good;

https://coinweek.com/modern-coins/coinweek-iq-united-states-1982-p-jefferson-nickel/

re '82-P nickels

"On PCGS Coinfacts, PCGS posits that as many as 116 million survive in Mint State, with 46.5 million surviving in the Gem Uncirculated grade of MS65. The basis of this estimate is not clear and we assume it accounts for a large deposit of unreleased nickels held by the government in deep storage. A more likely population of extant 1982-P uncs would have that total in the hundreds of thousands, with a minority of them (perhaps 20 to 30 thousand) in grades approaching Gem."

I just found this recently and got quite a kick out of it. Now I wish I had studied the '82 nickels more closely so I could provide a good estimate of the number surviving in Unc. It can be closely estimated by comparing the incidence of the two types in mint sets (with known mintages to the incidence in the marketplace. Whatever the actual number it's improbable that more than half a million survive. Indeed, fewer than half a million were set aside and many of these are gone or degraded now. There should be another million in AU and similar numbers of XF's. Most of the mintage is gone from circulation now because these have a remarkably high attrition and survivors are often low grade and culls. Nice VF's can still be found with some effort. Because of the large numbers set aside high grade stragglers are quite possible in circulation. It's much easier to find an XF 1982-P quarter than a 1985.

It's far tougher in BU than the '50-D and probably scarcer than the early mint marked jeffersons though more common in AU.

The two types are extremely easy to spot on well struck specimens but many of these are very poorly struck and they can be confused. The difference is dramatic but bad strikes tend to be awful and common.

FS are scarce. Despite setting aside many Gems in mint sets I found none. I suspect most come from rolls. True Gems are tough because of marking and poor strikes.

The days of finding these at a very low cost might be ending. The only reason they were available was that there was no demand. Now with a little demand they appear to be disappearing fast.

leothelyon

There are type 1 and type 2 varieties of the 1982-PD. The Type 1 show the reverse of 1977 scrunched up steps while the Type 2 show the reworked reverse die with stronger steps. The 2 varieties also show up with the proof coins as well. All the Breen varieties 2808 through 2817 were debunked when I asked Bern Nagangast why none of the varieties didn't show the irregular shape star of the obverse of 1977. He agreed with me that the irregular star should have transfered over to the 1982 dates if we are to believe 1982 dates were stamped with the former obverse dies. And that adjustments to this fact would needs to be updated in his Book, The Jefferson Nickel Analyst if there ever is a 3rd revision done. And there are a great number of collectors out there who just don't know yet and still believe they have these Breen varieties, Another collector advised me that the Reverse of 1977 dies were used up to 1986 which makes collecting a little more interesting if any of those other Type 1's can be found.

I've read your post 3x and I don't understand what you mean by "two types". Unless you're referring AU and UNC are the 2 types?

Leo

ricko

@cladking.... Thanks for the information on these nickels. I am beginning to think there may be some lurking opportunities in these coins. Truthfully, I usually ignore nickels... not sure why. Cheers, RickO

cladking

@leothelyon said:
There are type 1 and type 2 varieties of the 1982-PD. The Type 1 show the reverse of 1977 scrunched up steps while the Type 2 show the reworked reverse die with stronger steps. The 2 varieties also show up with the proof coins as well. All the Breen varieties 2808 through 2817 were debunked when I asked Bern Nagangast why none of the varieties didn't show the irregular shape star of the obverse of 1977. He agreed with me that the irregular star should have transfered over to the 1982 dates if we are to believe 1982 dates were stamped with the former obverse dies. And that adjustments to this fact would needs to be updated in his Book, The Jefferson Nickel Analyst if there ever is a 3rd revision done. And there are a great number of collectors out there who just don't know yet and still believe they have these Breen varieties, Another collector advised me that the Reverse of 1977 dies were used up to 1986 which makes collecting a little more interesting if any of those other Type 1's can be found.

You are suggesting then that the reverse of '77 was used for all the '82 issues but some have a reworked die with stronger steps!? I remember thinking I saw large differences in the dome of Monticello. It was really tough finding well struck specimens so hardly impossible I was mistaken.

I shouldda paid a lot more attention to nickels in that era. With a larger sample size I could have easily been sure to have well struck specimens of what I took to be two different types.

cladking

@ricko said:
@cladking.... Thanks for the information on these nickels. I am beginning to think there may be some lurking opportunities in these coins. Truthfully, I usually ignore nickels... not sure why.

I started with buffalos so it was only natural for me to collect Jeffersons. In the mid-'70's I began paying less attention to them because some dates were set aside in large quantities. Face value is so low that it doesn't require many hoarders to save a lot of them. They all missed some dates though (like the '75) but there was no way to know the better dates for many years.

Pennies exist in large quantities for every date, nickels are spotty and larger coins for the main part were not saved. This doesn't mean Gems of every date penny is common because some were poorly made and some have tarnished or corroded. Some coins like nice gemmy '84 cents with nice surfaces have been elusive for many years. Even Gem '68 cents are tough because mint set coins have spotted.

ricko

@cladking... Thanks for the reply and further information. Interesting. Cheers, RickO

joeykoins

Yes! Interesting article.
I'll now be on the hunt for those FS 1982p's.

Thanks for posting.

cladking

@joeykoins said:

I'll now be on the hunt for those FS 1982p's.

With 46.5 million Gems to search it should be easy, right?

It will be about as easy as Elmer Fudd putting a load of buckshot into Bugs Bunny.

cladking

Of course Leothelion would have a much better appreciation of how tough FS are than I but the Gems are certainly tough enough.

leothelyon

Well, there are 7 coins of both types/varieties, P & D mints to view in the following link.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1030414/jefferson-nickel-collection-1971-to-2003/p1?new=1
But you have to scroll down to see them!

Leo

cladking

@leothelyon said:
Well, there are 7 coins of both types/varieties, P & D mints to view in the following link.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1030414/jefferson-nickel-collection-1971-to-2003/p1?new=1
But you have to scroll down to see them!

I'm afraid I missed this thread or I would have commented. I rarely look at the BST threads. They are great coins and I hope you did or are doing great selling them.

I guess I find only two of each mint mark 1982 issues interesting enough to pay much attention to them. One of these days I'll try to get an estimate of the number that survive so I'll need to recognize all of them.

It's very interesting that most collectors will need multiple examples of both of these coins and there are so few in existence.

I tried to get a ballpark estimate in 1983 of the relative incidence and it seemed to be about 35% type of '82. this might have been done too early though dependent on when they were struck and how they were released.

streeter

Wasn't 1982 the year that mint sets were only available at the mint in person?

I rarely see 82 nickels in change. I doubt we'll have to wait 30 years to see gemmy 82 and 83 nickels and clads become really pricey. Right now few are worth sending in.

Maywood

I don't know how PCGS estimates the surviving numbers of these coins but I'd bet the numbers are closer to being in the 10's of thousands of coins and from those most of them aren't grading higher than MS63 non-Full Steps. Though you would think otherwise, collectors just didn't save these in rolls or even realize there were no Mint Sets issued until it was too late. The theory of millions held in "deep storage by the government" seem ridiculous, they would have been used to fill the shortages over the years if they really existed.

The 1982 and 1983 Jefferson Nickels are lost to posterity and circulation, if you find a nice one grading MS65FS or better it'd be a good one to buy and forget about, rather cheap with nowhere to go but up.

cladking

@Maywood said:
The theory of millions held in "deep storage by the government" seem ridiculous, they would have been used to fill the shortages over the years if they really existed.

The mint and FED are required by policy to issue all the coins in storage first. They adopted FIFO accounting (First In, First Out) in 1972 and have done this almost religiously. There are several exceptions of which I know but they mostly involve distributing popular states quarters before the vaults were cleared. I believe this happened to a lesser extent with the bicentennial quarter as well. Of course there have been and may be still some vaults that are "out of the loop". For instance 1n 1972 most federal reserve districts did at least some of their own coin distribution. Today this is all contracted. The FED vaults themselves probably had quarters in for years, if not still, because there has been no inflow or outflow.

Every once in a while you'll see some older quarters hitting circulation but since 1975 this has included no BU rolls or bags. It's very difficult to determine the scope of these releases but because they have all dissipated very quickly it is a safe assumption they are not very large scale. Few of them seem to be any larger than an isolated pallet of circulated quarters rarely more than ten years out of date. There were many such releases in this area (Chicago) after 2008. The coins in circulation are very evenly worn because each coin has spent about the same amount of time circulating. If you find a nice F 1969 quarter it's because it has accumulated a great deal of time sitting idle. Most of this date is already gone; destroyed because they were worn out or lost. Most of the survivors are in VG- to VG with a few in G. 40% are culls.

It's highly improbable that there are any unseen '82 nickels. The date was never really underrepresented in circulation Perhaps it is slightly with all the attention but if there were millions in storage it would be visible. BU roll prices would not be at $215.

cladking

@streeter said:
Wasn't 1982 the year that mint sets were only available at the mint in person?

Regular mint sets were eliminated in 1981. The Mint made 10,000 Philly souvenir sets available by mail but the hobby press failed to report it. Very few newspapers covered it. Another approximately 40,000 were made by companies and the quality of these is surprisingly good. Don't expect Gem Philly nickels and certainly don't expect Full Step. There are BU rolls out there and the quality of some is excellent.

I rarely see 82 nickels in change. I doubt we'll have to wait 30 years to see gemmy 82 and 83 nickels and clads become really pricey. Right now few are worth sending in.

I am amazed how high the attrition is on nickels now days. A lot of the older ones are roadkill and lower mintage dates are really hard to find. It could be covid related but about half of the '82 5c appear to be gone already. Of course there's also the fact that these contain a lot of valuable metal and a few people save them for this. If metals came down and everything returned to normal a few of the '82's would most probably come back but, of course, they'll be Beaten Up not BU.