sorry luck looking for FS nickels

poptopsRus

Bought a large collection of BU nickel rolls from the 60's & 70's and started searching them for FS and the luck as been very poor. Found a nice 1966 but will likely just come up short for FS. I haven't found one worth sending in. Don't get me wrong there are some high grades in these rolls but the search for FS is really poor. I did find a nice 1961 nickel with a clip though. Guess I'll just keep looking the rest of the rolls anyway.

nwcs

True FS nickels of the 60s and 70s are VERY hard to come by and worth more premium than they usually get. I've come close a few times but haven't found one yet.

Russ

I hear you. As I search through mint sets from that era looking for tasty Kennedys, I always check the nickels hoping to get lucky. Man, did the mint pump out garbage in those years. They should call the nickels "full wheel chair ramp".

Russ, NCNE

solid

They should call the nickels "full wheel chair ramp"

A new craze! Perfectly smooth, no trace of steps nickels! Yeah!

JRocco

I would have an awesome collection of those "full wheel chair ramp" Jeffs

clackamas

Very hard to find, I have a 1968-S at PCGS right now. It its third trip for the designation. IMO it is clearly a FS coin, nearly 6 steps infact but the way the steps. There is what at first glance appears to be a bridge but it does not infact bridge. Its these liitle things that really make it hard to get the FS designaiton.

rlawsha

I feel for you. I just went though a 2004 mint bag of 200 Kennedy halves and I was very dissapointed. Heavy bag marks on all coins, many were cloudy, stained or otherwise poor. I got so frustrated I dumped them for face value at the bank. Now I guess there ARE some 2004 Kennedys in curculation.

kranky

<< <i>They should call the nickels "full wheel chair ramp". >>

cladking

After looking at a few thousand rolls of coins, I gave up and confined my search mostly to mint sets.
They are tough to find (or impossible) for most dates in the mint sets but some aren't too hard. The
'66 in one of the worst in the rolls so one that's even close is a real score.

Modern rolls are the best source for varieties, though. ...and the ones that don't appear nice in sets.

rayovac

The Jefferson nickels from 1960 - 1970 are some of the hardest Jefferson nickels to obtain in FS. The 69D (pop 0), 68D (pop 0), 61D (pop 3), and 60D (pop 1) are the top 4 in my opinion. I personally think that the business strike 65 (pop 1), 66 (pop 1) and 67 (pop 0) coins may be the next hardest. One could argue that the 69S (pop 0), 70D (pop 3), 62D (pop 45), and 63D (pop 11) are as difficult to obtain in FS as the 53S (pop 9) and 54S (pop 15). 60P's have a pop of 14, 61P's a pop of 11, 64P pop 40, 64D pop 30, 68S pop 7, and 70s pop 26. That leaves the 62P as the easiest to make in FS followed by the 63P. The 63P is not easy to make. Every other date in the range from 60-70 should be considered nothing less than a major find!

I have only been collecting FS Jefferson’s since 96. While I have not been at it as long as some other folks I have "made" every date Jefferson nickel in PCGS FS except for 39D R38, 52P, 60D, 61D, 62D, 63D, 66, 67, 68D, 69DS.
I have spent alot of time looking thru rolls and mint sets for these coins. These dates will contain some of the ugliest coins you will ever see. But every once in a while you will find a FS coin.

I hope you find at least one FS coin and not the 62P!

Ray Overby

seanq

I collected full-step nickels back in the early and mid-1990s, before it was really fashionable. My first PCGS submission was a group of coins from this set, among them was a 1964 that made MS66. It was this -><- close to full steps, and was a 4/0 coin at the time.

Over five or six years, the only coins from 1960-70 coins I considered as full-step were that '64, a '62 in an ANACS 5-step holder, a '65 SMS, and a couple of '68-S. The '65 and '68-S probably wouldn't grade as 5-steps at PCGS today. I still have some unsearched rolls from that era, the last two I broke open (1961-D) looked like they were struck by two drunks swinging dies engraved on the back of coal shovels.


Sean Reynolds

spy88

Ray, as nothing but a fanatic myself for FS Jeffs, I truly admire your 1971 to present registry set. I know from my own personal search over the years, that finding raw FS Jeffs is one of the most challenging (but NOT impossible) feats in numismatics IMO.

Regardless of date/mm, many FS collectors will likely have to settle for a 4 or even a 3 stepper for many of the Jeffs 1960 thru 1985, not just to 1970. Seems the Philly mint really let their dies hammer out ramps instead of steps for a number of years after 1975 and then Denver started ramping in 1980.

I had Lasik done 2 years ago to see w/o glasses at a distance. I am very hard pressed to loupe thru even two rolls before my focus goes as a result.

But you and I both know there are "hoards" of Jeffersons out there in FS AND high grade raw. Someday, I hope to be in the right place at the right time when one of them opens up.

David

cladking

<< <i>.

But you and I both know there are "hoards" of Jeffersons out there in FS AND high grade raw. Someday, I hope to be in the right place at the right time when one of them opens up.

>>



There are some hordes of all the moderns out there but their size would probably surprise most people.
These coins are very hard to find in superb condition and even great effort put into finding them will not
yield substantial quantities. While a nickel has little cost to store now days this wasn't so true back in
the late '60's when things could still be purchased for a nickel. There were not large numbers of people
searching countless rolls and bags for the nicest coins and the six steppers. For the main part all these
coins looked like junk and no one could be certain anyone would ever want to collect them so it made no
sense to set aside large hordes of them. Most of the hordes which do exist were started much later and
are small simply because there weren't mountains of coins to check and the coins are generally low qual-
ity. The same thing applies to the mint sets but in spades. The cost of these in the early days was quite
high and setting aside nickels from them cost the value of the set less the face value in many cases. This
was a huge cost so there simply were not large numbers saved into hordes. All these sets were widely dis-
persed and finding them to check was never an easy task nor one which could be accomplished without
being seen by those looking for it. I just didn't much see it and don't believe it exist to a large extent.

spy88

cladking, my use of the word "hoards" in the plural is definitely open to interpretation as to just how many are out there. Speaking only to raw Jeffersons, I personally know of a collector that was buying rolls of them since he was 7 back in 1959. He stored them and never opened them up until about 6 years ago and started going thru them for FSers and 66/67/68 grades non-FS. He was also applying his purchasing to other unsearched OBW stashes (he told me of a 6000 roll collection he bought 6 months ago).

I have no reason to doubt his hoard collection of raw Jeffs as I have personally purchased over $2000 worth of 65/66/67FSers (50 to 70 % off slabbed value!!!) from him and saw in person what had to be one of the largest inventory of raw Jeffs anywhere! I guarantee you that there are probably others, its just a matter as to size and extent that is questionable.

David

mojoman

Hi, I think i have 1-2 how many steps 5-6?also i have a few from the 50s . Thanks,Dave (aka mojoman0_0) remember me ? lol thanks for all the great coins

keets

i'm of the opinion that some of the dates in the 60's, as mentioned by Ray, may never come to be found in true full step condition, regardless of the grade, especially 1966-1969. on the majority of coins a look at the reverse isn't really necessary. the strikes are so weak and the dies were so worn that a glance at the obverse tells me all i need to know.

searching for these dates is a nice distraction, though, and a worthwhile endeavor.

al h.

cladking

Spy88: I don't dispute that hoardes exist of both raw and gem coins. My contention
is that gem hordes are quite small and not numerous. Raw coins, too, exist in hoards
for almost all dates since the mid 1940's, though some earlier dates and '80's dates
are not as well represented in these hoards. These coins almost without exception
though are just typical rolls for the date. Very few went to the effort to choice out bags
of nickels to save. This did occur to a small extent with cents. Many of the cent rolls
one sees are apparently choice or gem but not the nickel rolls. These will probably not
yield the '60's era gems in any significant number.

The situation is much worse in the clads. Not only are there no significant hoardes of
gems but there are no significant hoards of raw coins. In many cases if one wants one
of these there is almost no choice but to obtain the mint set. There are some quarter
rolls that I've never seen in more than 30 years of looking.

Shamika

"They should call the nickels "full wheel chair ramp""

TWQG

<< <i>looked like they were struck by two drunks swinging dies engraved on the back of coal shovels. >>