It was advertised as BU and had a low buy it now price. I think it is uncirculated but I thought I'd ask the experts. It's a good looking nickel. If the obverse picture is too blurry I can attempt to take another. What is it worth?
I'll go AU 53...the best tell tail for me here is the tail and horn of the buffalo are flattened, they don't have their roundness. Nice coin though, for me I like my buffalo nickels to have some wear to them.
Lots of MS Buffs have flattened horns and tails; the striking pressure used was often not sufficient to produce a full strike on the nickel metal planchet. The key is to look for luster breaks on the high points such as the buffalo's hip. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any luster on this coin. I'll go with an understruck coin in AU-something.
Kanga, thanks for the info. I'm wondering now if I've got some that may be higher grade than I thought. Luster would be another thing to look at...it was tough to tell with the pics.
Surf around on eBay, Heritage, Stacks, etc. for completed auctions of Buff's that have been slabbed (PCGS or NGC) MS-something. Get a feeling for strength of strike and luster. Then looks for Buff's that were slabbed AU-something. See if you can spot the luster breaks.
According to Ron Pope, one of the authors of The Authoritative Reference on Buffalo Nickels, the 1937-P shows a typical strike with extremes (weak or full strike) rarely seen. This is based on a study comprising of over 300,000 examples. Based on that I would say this 1937 is an AU and not one of the 1% examples that suffers from a weak strike.
I'd go AU53. The coin appears to have very little original mint lust left and there appears to be wear marks on both the obverse and reverse.
I've seen quite a few '37-P Buffalo's , and most have booming luster or at least above average luster . I still say AU .
All i can say is Thank God for numismatists like Ron Pope...my eyes would be bleeding after looking at over 300,000 examples!
