What is a 1938 Reverse of 40 mean? (Nickels)

GottaGetCoins

I was confused by am earlier thread.

danny72170

I'm not an expert on Jefferson but....in 1939 (not 1938) the mint made a modification to the reverse of the Jefferson (not sure what the change was). So some 1939 nickels have the reverse that the 1938 nickels had and some have the reverse that would continue on through the series.

RGL

The vast majority of 1940 proof Jeffersons contain the Type 2 or straight, well-defined steps found on all 1940 to date coins. However, a proof die with the Type 1 or wavy steps from the first year of issue in 1938 or through late 1939 was dragged out of storage from somewhere and used, unintentionally apparently, to strike a small number of proofs and create the 1940 reverse of 1938. A scarce coin to cherry if you can.

There also is the 1939 reverse of 1940 Jefferson proof with the Type 2 steps. The vast majority of 1939 proofs were struck with Type 1 steps, with a limited number of Type 2 reverse dies used late in the year for a small number of coins. Another cherry to be looking for ... 1939 circulation strikes, by the way, are commonly found with both types of steps...