An oversized digit in the date - 1916-P Buffalo Nickel.

BuffaloIronTail

The Buffalo Nickel was re-done by the Mint in 1916, mainly to strengthen LIBERTY, which came out weak on the 1913-15 coins.

But there's another thing they tried to address: the date was too shallow and was prematurely wearing to the point of disappearing altogether.

Look at the 6 in the date.

It is bigger and more prominent than the other digits. The Mint probably figured that at least some of the date would remain.

Nothing the Mint did fully solved the problem, and dates with two digits became prominent.

I surmise that the Mint didn't want to exergue the date like they did on the reverse.

That would have solved the problem.

Pete

jesbroken

@BuffaloIronTail said:
The Buffalo Nickel was re-done by the Mint in 1916, mainly to strengthen LIBERTY, which came out weak on the 1913-15 coins.

But there's another thing they tried to address: the date was too shallow and was prematurely wearing to the point of disappearing altogether.

Look at the 6 in the date.

It is bigger and more prominent than the other digits. The Mint probably figured that at least some of the date would remain.

Nothing the Mint did fully solved the problem, and dates with two digits became prominent.

I surmise that the Mint didn't want to exergue the date like they did on the reverse.

That would have solved the problem.

Pete

Thanks Pete. While most collectors of the Buffalo Nickel were/are aware of the enlarged 6. I don't believe many have seen it mentioned on the forum, of course, JMO. For the beginning collectors of this series, and from ebay sales of well worn examples, I feel there are more than most think, this should be an interesting post. Below is a photo representing the difference in size between the numbers, especially, the 9 and the 6.
Jim

johnny9434

Another thing learned, cool

pcgsregistrycollector

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

stockdude_

Yeah I did not know that either and I collect Buffs

yosclimber

@BuffaloIronTail said:
The Buffalo Nickel was re-done by the Mint in 1916, mainly to strengthen LIBERTY, which came out weak on the 1913-15 coins.

But there's another thing they tried to address: the date was too shallow and was prematurely wearing to the point of disappearing altogether.

Maybe somebody had the wise idea to put the date on twice to be sure it would stay visible?

CaptHenway

Pete, I never noticed that!

jfriedm56

Pete @BuffaloIronTail. Never knew. Thanks for the enlightening information. Zack

oih82w8

I knew about the larger 6 in the date, I thought it was obvious, but i did not know about the strengthening of LIBERTY.

World67

They reworked the master hub for Lincoln cents in 1916 also, which unfortunately was kept in service until 1968.

taropatch99

Thank you for sharing that. That's interesting