What is the point of splitting the Jefferson nickel set at 1964/1965?

haletj

The coins are no different (minor change of mintmark I guess). Why would someone only collect half the set? What would he/she have against the other half?

dbldie55

Just happens to fall in the change to the silver content of the bigger coinage. The cent had already changed 5 years earlier, so us Jefferson collectors are stuck with this.

melikecoins

That way you can collect the easy part of the set.

Glen

haletj

Which part is the easy part? I have most of the 30's 40's in gem and a few 50's, the 60's through 2004 I have very few!

melikecoins

1938-1964 is the only set that can currently be complete with Full Steps.
Late 60's are killers. 60 & 61 are not easy but have been FS's

Glen

cladking

There was a big drop off in setting aside all denominations of coins in 1965. In fact
it continued to trend down all through the modern era to '98. There are a couple of
natural dividing lines at 1965. There was a huge drop off in average quality of the
coins made for circulation in 1965 and this applied to the nickels to some extent also.
There was also the discontinuance of both the proof and the regular mint sets at
this time. The initials were added in '66 and the mint mark switched positions in '68.

Most collectors still don't collect the '65 to date nickels and most of the sets one sees
on the market end at '64 or '62.

If collectors ever do update their sets they will find some surprises in the later date coins
that go well beyond quality or step count issues.

cupronik

I would like to see the Jefferson Nickel set run from 1938-1970 since
1971 was the year of the most obvious refinements of both the ob-
verse and reverse designs. It does seem odd to have the these re-
finements occur a few years(but not many) after start of the later Jeff 5c set that now begins in 1965.

I know the Whitman blue folders probably are inspiration for the continuance of tradition, but the 1970/1971 split makes more sense
today.

edsondl

One can argue that the mintmark moved to the front of the nickel in 1968, so that should mark the split in the series, or 1964 since it is the last date to have the mintmark on the reverse.

haletj

Still seems as arbitrary as splitting Morgan Dollars at 1890 or Lincoln Cents at 1965, or Walkers at 1917 when they changed the mintmark.

dbldie55

Who split the Morgans in 1890. All I know is that is where album 1 ended, but that was due to the number of coins, not some other issue.