Coin Collecting in the Coronaverse

If you are like me, your normal routine has been somewhat disrupted by the corona virus. It is early April, and I am working from home a few days a week and staying in as much as possible. However, this is minor annoyance compared to the people are in the hospital and very sick and in many cases dying. I feel horrible for the people suffering from the virus infection and also for the heroic people who are treating these people at their risk of their own lives. For the vast majority of us who are lucky enough to have escaped the virus so far, we need some distraction from the grim statistics on CNN. I thought I would give some tips on how I have been keeping my sanity by passing the time with the one thing I know very well – coin collecting.

Up until a few weeks ago, I could still go to the banks and get my weekly boxes of coins to sort through. I normally get a box of 50 rolls (2000) quarters to look for W-mint quarters (future blog) and other interesting coins like S-mints, proofs, toner state quarters, and of course silver quarters from before 1965. The lobbies of all of my local banks have shut down now, so I am patiently waiting for the banks to reopen so I can get back to my quarter hunting. Since the banks have been closed, a new 2020 America the Beautiful quarter from Connecticut was issued on April 6th. The Weir Farm quarter celebrates the only national park dedicated to painting. This is also the first W quarter issued for 2020 and has a privy mark celebrating the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. Interestingly, the US Mint is also releasing the 2020 American Samoa W quarter this week. They originally issued the “fruit bat” quarter in February, but not the W version.

Weir Farm W Quarter showing the Privy Mark (from Coin World)

I haven’t tried getting rolls of quarter from the bank drive-thru yet, mostly because of the stay-at-home order from Governer Polis. Getting coins from the bank for fun is NOT essential and increases risk so I’ll just wait patiently for my chance to find one of the new W quarters when the stay-at-home order is lifted.

So what to do in the mean time? I have been checking out W quarters on ebay. A few months ago, they were all going for $15-$25. Turns out that out of the five W quarters issued last year, four of them go for $5-10 each, but the Northern Mariana Islands quarter still goes for $20-30 even though they all have the same mintage. Not sure what is going on with that – a sweet and frustrating mystery, but I’m still doing research.

I’m also doing research on older quarters. One of my favorites is the iconic 1916 Standing Liberty quarter. It was the first year for the new quarter, and they made a scant 52,000 making it one of the rarest and one of the most expensive 20th century coins. The design on the quarter was a bit too risque with Liberty having a bare breast, so they changed it in 1917 to add chain mail. Anyway, I just love the design which says America is beautiful, but also badass so don’t mess with us. Always something to learn about with coins because they are part of our American history. In this case, the added chain mail symbolizes America entering WW1 in 1917 by declaring war against Germany.

1916 Standing Liberty Quarter, PCGS MS-66+

I also usually get a box or two of nickel and pennies to look through each week. This is something I have been doing for years, but of course I can’t right now since all of banks are a no-go. What I have been doing to get my “nickel fix” is really slowing down my review of each coin. Instead of going through a roll in about a minute, I look carefully at each coin for several minutes. Each one gets a very thorough examination, which is the equivalent of sipping on a beer versus chugging it down. By carefully checking out every letter and number on both sides of the coin with a 45x handheld microscope, I have found an amazing array of error coins with doubled lettering, double dates, and repunched mint marks that I would have never seen by doing it the old way of flipping through a coin a second to look just at dates. These error coins may not be worth much now, but I’m hopeful that I might find a new, undiscovered Jefferson nickel variety. Looking at a roll a day allows me to savor the few unopened rolls I have left from “before the virus”.

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.
Barack Obama

My son, Nicholas, and I have also been looking through some of our coins we have in inventory to see if we missed something. Nicholas has been doing “distance learning” from UW-Madison for a few weeks now since face-to-face classes are canceled for the rest of the semester. In his downtime from the on-line, he has been looking for error coins in a bag of hundreds of 1955-D nickels that we have collected over the years. The 1955 D/S error is where the Denver mint stamped a D over the S from a reverse die from the San Francisco mint to reuse it since they stopped making S mint nickels in 1954. With the 45x loop, you can see the if the D mint mark has a ghost of an S under it. It is a long shot, but a 1955 D/S is worth $20-30 instead of just 10 cents for a regular 1955-D. Nicholas already proved he has an “eagle eye” when looking through rolls and rolls of 1942-D nickels last year. He found nine 1942-D over horizontal D error coins, which go for $50-100 each, instead of 50 cents each for a normal 1942-D. So this week I bought 15 more 1942-D rolls from ebay to have some coins to search through together.

Closeup of Mintmark on a 1955 D over S Nickel (from PCGS)

While we are stuck inside, we are finding ways to connect to one another like never before, if only through a tiny screen. But if you are like me, you also need to find something to do with your hands and something to keep your mind off of the 24/7 COVID-19 coverage. Some people tend to their gardens, while others paint or work out or bake or sew or fish or read or write blogs, or whatever. For me coin collecting is my bit of “normal” in a world that has been turned upside down. I hope you will stay safe in the coming months and find your bit of normal too.

1950-D: King of the Circulated Coins

I found a 1950-D nickel recently in a roll from the bank. I was getting some quarter rolls to look for W mint 2019 quarters, and on a whim asked the teller for 20 rolls of nickels. It was random chance that I got a roll from that teller at that time that just happened to have a 50-D nickel. Why is this significant? Because this was only the third time I have found a 1950-D in all of the years I have been looking at nickels. Not only are they the lowest mintage, regular issue Jefferson nickel at 2.6 million produced, in my experience, they are the most elusive and hardest nickels to find in circulation. I call them the King of Circulated Coins, because there just are not that many of them out there. Let me explain.

There are two general categories of coins with respect to condition: Circulated and Uncirculated. Uncirculated coins are coins that are in the same condition as they were issued from the mint – in other words, no or minimal scratches. This is what an uncirculated 1950-D nickel looks like (with really nice toning):

At the other end of the condition spectrum are circulated coins. Circulated coins are worn from rubbing against other coins in coin purses, coin jars, front pockets, coin rolls, change machines, vending machines, cash registers, etc. This is what a circulated 1950-D nickel looks like:

For most coins – I would say 99.9% of all coins, the new, perfect uncirculated version of a coin is much scarcer and worth much more than an average circulated example. However, for 1950-D nickels this just isn’t the case. In fact, circulated versions of 1950-D are worth almost as much as an uncirculated coin because they are almost impossible to find. Whether on ebay or at a coin shop or coin show, you can find lots of perfect 1950-D nickels, but there are very few circulated example for sale, and you will pay almost as much for it as a brand new 1950-D. For example, a roll of perfect 1950-D nickels goes for $350-$400, but a roll of circulated ones (if you can find one) will go for $250-$300. This happens nowhere else in numismatics, other than for extremely rare coins.

The 1950-D nickel indeed proved to be rare – in circulation. Today worn pieces are seen far less often than Uncirculated coins.
As to circulated coins, these are really hard to find!
A Guide Book of United States Coins MEGA RED 3rd Edition

Why are 1950-D nickels so scarce in circulated condition? Why do I call them the King of Circulated Coins? Because in 1951, when the Mint announced that very few were made, people went crazy trying to find them. Coin collectors and dealers went to Midwest banks and bought thousands of rolls of the brand new coins and started selling them for profit. With the price for these rolls escalating, more and more people took them out of circulation before they could become worn. So most of the surviving 1950-D nickels that survive today come from Brilliant Uncirculated rolls that were hoarded in the 50s. The rare few that survived that initial onslaught of greed and speculation, went quietly about their nickel lives getting progressively more smooth as the years went on. Over the decades, collectors who needed to fill that slot in their coin books would pluck one the survivors out of circulation if they were lucky enough to find one. So fast forwarding to today, there are very few left to find. When dealers sell coin folders with circulated versions all of the Jefferson nickel years and mintmarks from 1938 to 1960, nine times out of ten, they put an uncirculated nickel in for the 1950-D and advertise that fact as if they are doing you a favor. It is a gimmick to hide the fact that they don’t have any circulated 1950-Ds to fill the slots.

Of all of the regular issue Jefferson nickels (not counting error coins), the one that makes me most happy and excited when I find it is a circulated 1950-D because I know the history of this coin, and now so do you.

The Infamous 1975 High D

One of my favorite Jefferson nickels is the 1975 nickel with a misplaced mintmark from the Denver Mint – the so-called High D. Normally, the mintmark is well below the five in the date, but in this variety it is next to the 5.

This is what NGC has to say about the variety:

In 2015 a famous numismatist, Q. David Bowers, put out a bounty on the coin: he would pay $500 for an uncirculated version of the coin and donate $1000 to a numismatic charity in the sellers name. No one took him up on his offer. Well Mr. Bowers, here is what you were looking for, but we are not selling!

Of the five coins in the NGC Census, this is the highest graded 1975 High D by far:

This coin also has the coveted QA sticker, which is a certification by a third party, QA Coins, that the grade given by NGC is accurate. They specialize in modern coins like Jefferson nickels so they know what they are talking about. Not sure if there any other nicer examples out there, but so far none have surfaced.

In my own census of examples in our family, there are nine examples of the 75 High D nickel:

NGC MS-63 QA (above coin)
NGC MS-62 with obverse cud which is a double error variety.

NGC AU-58 with obverse cud (slabbed before High D was officially recognized); this die break may have shortened the life of this High D die, which could explain why they are so rare

Close ups

NGC XF-45 (my Brother’s coin)

NGC XF-40

ANACS EF-40 DETAILS

Lastly, three ungraded, circulated examples: one is my Dad’s (no pic) and the two below are mine

So why is this important? Why is this one of my favorite coins? I guess it is because this coin is really hard to find – the thrill of the chase. I have looked through at least a million nickels in the last 15 years, but I have only found two! My dad searched through 10,000 nickels a week for two years, and he has only found two. I vividly remember the call when he found his first 75 High D. He only had to say four words: “The Eagle Has Landed!” and I knew exactly what he meant. Ever since we saw this variety mentioned in A Guide Book of United States Coins (the “Red Book”), my brother, dad, and I were obsessed with trying to be the first to find one. Dad won the race, and we all celebrated together.

Another reason for this being one of my favorites is that it is a recently discovered variety. It took about 40 years for people like Bowers to take notice. By that time, most of these have become worn out. I estimate that out of 1000 1975 D nickels, only one or two are in any kind of decent shape. So finding an uncirculated 75 High D is like finding a unicorn.

And these 75 High D coins have been so thoroughly distributed over the last four decades that the only way to find them is by looking through thousands and thousands of nickels or getting very lucky . The sheer volume of nickels in circulation – tens of billions – makes it like winning the lottery if you find one. Unlike almost every other nickel, you can’t just go out and buy these (unless you happen to find one on ebay like I did last weekend 😁). They are nearly unobtainable, which makes them that much more desirable. In the coin world, like in life, the harder you have to work to get something, the more you appreciate it.

My last reason for liking this coin is that even though the 1975 High D nickel is one of the absolute rarities of 20th century American coins (IMHO), it is also one of the least known. NGC recognizes this variety, but PCGS does not. My EF-40 DETAILS example above was the first 75 High D graded by ANACS. Not one of the hundreds of dealers I have met at coin shows over the past few years has ever even heard of this variety. This anonymity has allowed me to quietly pick up five 75 High Ds without spending a fortune.

So get out there and find those 75 High Ds before the rest of the world discovers how cool and rare they are! I hope you get to tell your favorite person, “The Eagle Has Landed ” and they know exactly what you mean.

Why I Collect Coins

I have been collecting coins, mostly nickels, for over 40 years. Collecting coins has been a fixture in my life since I can remember and is still a hobby that I enjoy. Millions of people collect coins for various reasons – as an investment, as status symbols or to get rich. Of course, I’ve always said, “You can’t go wrong with collecting money” so there is something inherently secure in collecting coins because they have intrinsic value.

But for me the reasons why I love collecting coins have more to do with connecting to family traditions rather than for profits. My dad collects coins and has done so since he had a paper route in the 1950s, and my grandpa before him collected coins since the 1930s and 1940s. My brother and I have collected coins together since we were kids. My boys also collect coins and love to go with me to coin shows. For all of us, this wonderful hobby of coin collecting is something brings us closer together as a family. We each have our specialties, mine being Jefferson nickels, but we can appreciate each other’s passion and excitement on finding that special coin.

My boys and my dog Bella working on some coins

When I was in grade school, I used to go visit my dad and his family for the weekend. I had two families since I was two when my young parents got divorced. My Dad would pick me up on Friday night, and then on Saturday morning, we would go to the bank and get rolls of nickels and pennies. My dad, my brother, and I would then look through all of the coins to find old wheat pennies or Jefferson nickels. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were essentially “Coin Roll Hunting”, which is a way to search for rare or scarce coins by pouring through hundreds of coin rolls. For me it was just fun times with my dad and brother who I didn’t get to see very often. The thrill of finding a “keeper” more than made up for the monotony of sorting through all of the thousands of “scrap” coins with no value beyond face value. The experience taught me patience and the value of putting in the investment of time and effort to eventually get something that you want. But more importantly, the time we spent on coins bonded us together, and those bonds are still strong in spite of time and distance separating us.

This coin tradition continues today with my two sons. In a typical week, we will look through boxes of nickels, pennies, and quarters we get from the bank. While our success rate in finding coins worth keeping is low, the sparkle in their eyes when they do hit the jackpot is priceless to me. Recently, while looking through a box of quarters, my 15-year-old son Anthony found a “W” quarter, which are made at the West Point mint and seeded in with the regular quarters by the US Mint for collectors to find. He was so excited; you would think that it was Christmas morning. His reaction was the reason I collect coins and was worth way more than the $15 value of the quarter.

Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life; like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone.
John Steinbeck

My older son Nicholas and I love to go to coin shows where all the coin dealers in the area have tables and sell their coins. Nicholas is like a coin Ninja swooping in to a table and looking through all of the nickels and picking out the best coins. His perfect vision combined with encyclopedic knowledge of nickels makes him a formidable opponent to the average dealer, who has knowledge of all coins, but not so much with Jefferson nickels. I am amazed at his ability to do the hard work and research to get what he wants. It is almost an unfair fight. The best part of the coin show experience is afterward when we proudly check our hoard of coins and review how our day went. This is the part that I look forward to most because just as the new coins become part of our coin collection, the memories go into my “memory” collection of spending time with the people I love most.