Questioning the value of the Jefferson nickel

atarian

I love collecting these coins and have fun finding them in the change but i have to ask how can these coins be worth money in the future when they dont seem to wear to badly ( like the buffalos did) also when people like me who dont go to many coin shops to buy coins can find plenty of 1950s 40s and even 38s and 39s . dont seem to be very hard to locate these coins. what are your takes on thi.s

MJPHELAN

The jefferson will wear. I have seveal slabbed AU-58's that prove it (and fooled me!). I love to collect full step jeffersons. You will learn that there are many difficult dates to obtain in full step (even some moderns). Enjoy your jeffersons!

mark

cladking

This is one of the greatest weaknesses of all the moderns and applies especially
to the cents and nickels. These coins have a very low velocity in circulation be-
cause there are far more than what are needed for normal commerce. Mostly they
spend their lives sitting in jars and sock drawers. People don't do nearly as much
physical labor as they used to which was also a major contributor to wear as the
coins bounced around in peoples' pockets.

In another very real sense though it is also one of moderns greatest strenghts and
this will become more obvious as time wears on. Namely that their high grades lull-
ed people into not having a sense of urgency to make collections of these coins. The
lack of precious metals also stopped people from accumulating the coins as a store of
value. While the coins do sit most of their lives it is extremely unusual for a nickel to
sit for more than three years without being spent or redeemed at the bank. This has
resulted in the coins becoming very universally worn. For a 1966 nickel to be foumd
in AU it would almost have had to have been spent only about every three years since
1966. This is virtually impossible and if you seek this coin you will not find it.

Without collections set aside and with a near total dirth of nice circs it seems that col-
lectors will simply seek coins which are "nice". Whether this is XF or choice unc will de-
pend on the individual collector. Even if virtually all collectors desire attractive F specimens
there are still varieties that are very few and far between.

Cents are often available all the way back to the '50's in AU and slider in circulation. The
velocity of these is even slower than the nickel but the attrition is extremely high also. Find-
ing a '68-S cent in AU isn't so much the difficulty here as finding this coin at all!!. There is
a much lower proportion of '68-s cents in circulation today than there was of '09-S vdb's
in the early 1950's.

Halfs and dollars have similar problems. This is not a significant factor for quarters though
these are certainly in much better shape than the less old silvers were in 1964.

mgoodm3

what he said.

charley

Jeffersons-extremely underrated-a tough 68 and even tougher 69 ,for all years, at a reasonable price,never mind varieties;you could write a book(again). A real pleasurable series,if one looses the "its' common" attitude.

atarian

i keep thinking though that with lincoln cents common dates seem to be mostly after 1940 dimes its clad dimes are much easier to get than silver dimes. and so can be said for quarters. but for soem reason there are plenty more jefferson nickels from long ago seem to be common place in change. not talking grades but if you come across a 1921 S or 1919 or a 1925 lincoln like i have i get the feeling is more of a find than saying i found found 3 1939 nickels. no matter the grade. this makes me wonder if jefferson nickels wont be as valueable. as soon as you get away from the EF-40 grades or higher. i think that the jefferson nickels in grading G-F for the older ones arent gonna be worth more than what a post 1940 lincoln goes for (not a penny) but just too common to be collectible and will be over looked.

nwcs

They do wear. Nickel is just harder. But it's a scale. You just position the ends differently. Not a problem. Also, the highest end of these coins from the 30s-40s are a challenge and when you factor full steps into it... very hard.

cladking

<< <i>i keep thinking though that with lincoln cents common dates seem to be mostly after 1940 dimes its clad dimes are much easier to get than silver dimes. and so can be said for quarters. but for soem reason there are plenty more jefferson nickels from long ago seem to be common place in change. not talking grades but if you come across a 1921 S or 1919 or a 1925 lincoln like i have i get the feeling is more of a find than saying i found found 3 1939 nickels. no matter the grade. this makes me wonder if jefferson nickels wont be as valueable. as soon as you get away from the EF-40 grades or higher. i think that the jefferson nickels in grading G-F for the older ones arent gonna be worth more than what a post 1940 lincoln goes for (not a penny) but just too common to be collectible and will be over looked. >>



While these statements are true they are very misleading. Silver coins aren't encountered in change
because they are worth more than face value. There are far more VF and better 1964 silver quarters
in existence than there are VF or better 1965 quarters. There are far more uncirculated 1949-S dimes
dimes in existence than there are uncirculated 1982-P dimes. When you look at higher grades it is of-
ten the clads which are scarcer and sometimes far scarcer.

It is true that many of the older nickels were saved from circulation where the newer ones were not.
The nickels and cents for the main part will likely not attain a lot of value except in the higher grades,
but I wouldn't write off the potential of a coin like an AU-58 1982-P nickel. Nor would I write off the po-
tential of the many hundreds of varieties which have been made.