Hello, I am looking into the change in the dies during 1982 for the Jefferson nickels. In my club there has been a lot of conversations but yet no full answer about when the new dies were started or how many of each were used. Basically the talk is that there are 2 obverse dies and 2 reverse dies used at the mint that year for the nickels. The first obverse die was used from 1971 or 1977 till 1981 the second obverse die was started sometime in 1982.I wanted to know if it started the year as the working hub/die or did it start at some point latter on. The second option would mean that there are indeed 2 obverse dies used that year. On the issue of the reverse dies I have a copy of both reverse dies matted with 1982 obverse dies in my possession. Again it would be a die used from 1971 or 1977 till 1981 and a die issued in 1982. Can you tell me if booth dies were used at all 3 mints as reported in 1982/1983? Also can you tell me what month the dies went from the early 1981 type to the latter 1982 type? This has been a debate my coin club has wrestled with for sometime and I would like to finally get the true facts on these dies. Any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated up to and including redirecting me to another person or additional notes that you may find on this subject. Thank You for your time and Help John Miller
John, I don't know if Paul, aka Lehigh96, can help you, but he is an avid Jefferson collector. If not, maybe Roger Burdette, aka RWB, can. Besides being a published author of many books, he is an excellent source for research. Chris
I hope that this is OK but I had started a post at another coin forum about this a few years back. Maybe some help. http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=40897&whichpage=1
First, to the OP. I have found both reverses on Philadelphia and Denver coins, but only the later hub version on the proofs. That doesn't mean they are not out there, I just haven't found one. I have tried for years to make sense of this issue. I have looked in detail at every 72 and 82 I have found over 4 years of nickel roll searching, and I use e-bay as one of my sources for research as it gives me a lot of images to look at. I have looked at hundreds (if not more) and have never found an 82 coin that I can definitely ID as a an obverse Type of 77. The reverses are easy. The same is true for the 70-72 issues. The reverse is easy, but I find the obverses to be more of a continuum than a bimodal distribution. I even tried assembling a set of many dozens of images from 68-74 so i could be confident of being able to ID the end points. I've seen previous discussion that, at least for early 70's nickels, the original report may have been in error. If anyone has any definitive die markers (especially to provide estimates of the number of dies involved), hints, etc., for the "mules", publishing them would be a great service to the vast dozen or so collectors that actually care about these things.
quarter-back - Pretty sure what you want can be found in this book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Official-...A+Guide+Book+of+Buffalo+and+Jefferson+Nickels
Thanks, for the suggestion. Yeah, I have that book, as well as the Negengast book, and I have poured over everything I can find on-line. It may be just me, but I have a hard time translating the written descriptions into what the coin should look like. Most of the published material has either a description or only show pictures of the reverses. With the amount of individual variability, I just can't nail down the critical differences on the obverses for either set of die transitions. I even tried working with only proofs, but even the proofs from the early 70's are highly variable. Anyway, I'll just keep plugging away. Discussions like these are extremely valuable.
