Buffalo

silverd510 (74)in #silvergoldstackers • 3 days ago

Afternoon everyone....

Today I want to share with you a coin that has flown under the radar for a long time now. While it’s just starting to gain value as it should, it’s still not close to its true potential.

There are many coins and some entire series that are currently undervalued. One of the series that is truly undervalued is the Franklin half dollar series.

But that’s a subject for a different day.

So the coin that I am talking about today is the 1938-D Indian head nickel. Also known as the Buffalo nickel, because of the Buffalo on the reverse. It is one of the most collected coins ever. One because they are a truly amazing design. The second being that finding a beautiful specimen is quite the challenge.

Because of the way the dies were made for these coins, the highest point of the coin is the date. Which is why the experts say more than half of the Buffalo nickels still around do not have a readable date on them. Yes there is a trick to making the date appear with a chemical but that is by no means a collectors coin.

The specific coin I am talking about has a mintage of barely over 7 million. Which is nothing for a nickel. Most of the years have mintages over 20+ million and the truly common years have as high as 100+ million struck.

Here is the info from Numista:
IssuerUnited States (US territories United States)
Ruling authorityFederal republic (1776-date)
TypeStandard circulation coins
Years1913-1938
Value5 Cents (0.05 USD)
CurrencyDollar (1785-date)
CompositionCopper-nickel
Weight5 g
Diameter21.2 mm
Thickness1.95 mm
ShapeRound
TechniqueMilled
OrientationCoin alignment ↑↓

This 1938-D Buffalo nickel is a truly pristine example. Per PCGS population records the are just over 2800 examples of this coin graded higher. That’s only .04% of the known mintage.