How rare are the 2004P Peace Nickel Double Dies?

MrSpud

At a coin show a little while back I ran across a dealer I had met before at a few other coin shows. He is into searching through modern coins for high grades and varieties. He had 4 of the 2004P double dies. He let me look at them with his loupe and they had the split serifs in the 2 and the 4. They looked just like the pictures on Varietynickels.com. He said that he found all 4 in one roll that he had gotten straight from the mint. They looked neat, but I wasn't sure what they were really worth so I didn't get one. Also, I figured if he found these in a mint roll that there must be a whole bunch of them out there. Only I read an article in Coin World today that made it seem like just a few of them have been found. So now I am wondering, are these really rare or have a bunch of them been found?

chiefbob

After reading about these in CW, I broke open a Mint sealed roll. I was going blind with the loupe, due to my contact lenses. I didn't find any with the split serifs, but I did see how horrible these coins were!

At least half of them had a hazy, white appearance. Almost all had big gouges, scratches, etc. I couldn't even pull one out of the roll to send in for a high grade.

It's no wonder that modern coins of even this current year command a high premium for high grades, because they seem to be truly rare.

BTW, was the dealer selling them (sounds like you looked at raw coins?) and if so, how much was he asking?

Regards,

Bob

MrSpud

He had $100 written on the 2X2's.

jtwax

The most recent eBay auctioned 04 5c DDO went for $68. I would imagine that they will come down to half that price within a few months.

koynekwest

I would have thought they'd be worth more, especially considering they are on a commemorative coin and were produced during an era when doubled dies weren't supposed to occur.

Looking at the photos of the reported specimens, and the late die state of those I've looked at leads me to believe that they ran a full die run of 200,000+ coins; they look like a Class VI instead of a Class IV. I saw the same thing with the 1995 1-O-V Lincoln-a vlds that looked like a Class VI, and surmised that it, too would be a common doubled die. It is-around 1 million struck.

jtwax

Here's one from Crawford in MDS.

Link