So if people have collected full step nickels since the late 70's...

LincolnsRule

why didn't they find and set aside more full step 81-p's and 83-p's! Argh!

cladking

Really nice coins of most dates and mints have been really hard to find since 1950. Besides having
very little interest in new coins collectors also have very little interest in very unattractive coins. When
you look at a roll of new coins and see that they are poorly struck and horribly marked then you are
inclined to just spend them. When you finally do see some nice coins you figure it must be a good
year for quality and you don't increase the number you save.

The '81-P had terrible surfaces and just about everything was wrong with the '83-P. To compound the
problem there were no mint sets for the '83 so far too few coins were set aside at all.

Even in years where you were able to latch on to a quantity of nice coins and you had good reason to
believe that they were scarce, it was still difficult to tie up money and space to set them aside. While
it was obvious even in '83 that the coins were poor quality and there would be no mint sets one still didn't
know if other collectors were setting aside bags or not so it still took some courage to set them aside.

The conventional wisdom in those days was that no one would ever be interested in collecting the post-
'64 issues. Even five or ten years ago these still didn't have much of a premium so some of those that
had survived would get placed back into circulation when the owner died or tired of holding them. It's
really a wonder that there are as many as there are of some of these coins.

And, no, I never did find a nice '83 nickel though I have found a few of the D's (like everyone else).

leothelyon

The 1981-P is extremely rare in the quality shown below. Like the 1954-S, it's the King of the 20th Century Jefferson Nickel Series #2 Set 1971 to 2003! IMHO, I value this coin well into 4 figures but that's just me!


Leo

BECOKA

If we only knew then, what we know now.

larrynj

there were plenty of people looking for them then and they were just as hard to find then as they are now. full step freaks never looked down their noses at post-64 dates that i am aware of.

cladking

<< <i>there were plenty of people looking for them then and they were just as hard to find then as they are now. full step freaks never looked down their noses at post-64 dates that i am aware of. >>



It's not so much the full step collectors who ignore the later dates as it is
most of the other Jefferson collectors. You can find several 1938 to '61 or
'64 sets for every '65 to date set. Even among FS collectors there are many
who don't collect the later issues. They may appreciate the scarcity but they
don't collect them.