1901 reverse of 1902 liberty nickel

WACoinGuy

I know they changed the reverse of the liberty nickel in 1901 (so there's a "reverse of 1900" and a "reverse of 1902"), but does anyone know how many of the coins were minted with each of the reverses? My own brief search of coins offered for sale online shows the reverse of 1902 is the rarer one -- only about 20-25% of the 1901 nickels I've seen for sale are of this type. Interestingly, no one that has the second reverse for sale makes mention of the fact theirs is the second reverse.

cladking

I collected these many years ago and never noticed the difference. Varieties of this
sort are always fascinating even when they are fairly common.

Where's the easiest place to see the difference?

mgoodm3

I didn't know that there was a difference. shows you what I know.

dbldie55

I think the second is rarer, but certainly not rare. There was a MS66 recently on Teletrade with the second reverse.

Here are the closeups.

Rev of 1900



Rev of 1902

LanLord

I'm not seeing the difference, I took a 1900 and 1902 and made one transparent and overlayed it over the other. I see no difference, what am I missing?

dbldie55

Look at the distance between the top of the V and the stalk. It is much closer on the reverse of 1902.

LanLord

Gotcha, I was looking for a shift in lettering or something like that.

Thanks.