Question about 51-D and 51-S Nickels...

D

It's just about the Red Book, I was fishing through it because I regularly pull "better date" moderns out of our deposits and safe at work all the time.

The question is, according to the Red Book, a 51-D and a 51-S have very different mintages (S being less) yet, the D is issued a higher value... Why is this the case?

-Daniel

richbeat

Good question. I'm not a Jefferson nickel expert, but here's what the 2004 red book shows:

1951D VF20-$0.20 EF40-$0.30 MS63-$2.25
1951S VF20-$0.50 EF40-$0.90 MS63-$3.00

The 2005 red book has eliminated VF and EF values for those two dates. Could it be a misprint with the values reversed?

keets

looking at Modern issues in circulated grades and assigning values is close to meaningless since they just aren't collected in those grades with the possible exception of youngsters just entering the hobby. the reasoning is quite simple-----they're readily available in BU condition. also, the Redbook is a good source of general information when nothing else is handy but should never be used for actual pricing. just remember the old joke: What do you call a collector walking the bourse floor with a Redbook?? A sucker!!