I bought myself a 1997 Botanic Gardens set today, mainly for the 1997 P Matte Proof Jefferson Nickel (mintage of 25,000.) I have to be honest...it was the last thing I opened. (Most of my other purchases were DDO or other varieties...) As soon as I opened it, I saw THIS: There are literally ZERO marks/dings/hairlines on this coin. I looked at the pictures and saw a white dot between the B and E of LIBERTY...nope. That's not on the coin. This coin is PERFECT...and has gorgeous toning to boot! You know, I hadn't planned on keeping this...I'd planned on flipping it immediately to bring down the cost of my matte proof nickel. But after looking at this...I am hell bent on testing whether or not NGC will give this an MS70* grade... Sorry for all the recent posts...and all the huge images...but I just had to share this!
It's really hard to tell from photos whether or not it would garner a 70. All it takes is the slightest little pinprick to catch the eyes of the graders to knock it down a point, and the only way to tell is to tilt the coin back and forth in all directions under a good light. In any case, I think it's beautiful, and I'd be curious to know if it would get a star (*) for the crescent toning. Go ahead and submit it. It's only money that you can't take with you. Chris
That is a wonderful coin! Beautiful design by the mint (seems rare these days). Nice strike. Gorgeous toning. Not sure I could bring myself to sell that. Good luck with NGC, and thanks for sharing.
Yes, I too have been wanting one I f those sets for the nickle too. I just recently got the Jefferson coin and currency set. Yours is definitely a nice piece. How about a pic of the nickle?
Well, it is a super old thread and I now probably have around 15-30 of the 1997 nickels - with about double that of the 1994’s - so I’m not sure I could even figure out which one came in this particular set haha In fact, I just picked up another of the 1994 sets Saturday for $25. Which I thought was a GREAT price, especially once I sell off the dollar and commemorative and end up paying about $1 net for the nickel...
