I've gone through thousands of nickels both at work and searching rolls, and I've noticed that the wear pattern on nickels from the '40s and early '50s is unique (I reckon the '30s Jeffersons are the same way, but I haven't found a whole lot of them. I've found tons of '40s and early '50s nickels.) They also tend to acquire a yellowish patina. I haven't noticed this type of wear and coloring on any nickels past the early '50s. Was there a slight composition change somewhere around 1955? My first thought was that the nickels were older and therefore worn more than later nickels, but I can't recall ever seeing a nickel later than '54 or so with this type of wear pattern and coloring. When searching through nickels, I can always pick out a '40s nickel even if I just see the reverse. They are unmistakable. Does anybody know why the patina on these nickels is unique?
I've noticed the same thing. I can point out a nickel from the 1940s up until the late 1950s without a problem. Once you get to around 1957 or 1958, they are easily confused with nickels from the early 1960s. All of this likely has to do with the fact the relief was being changed and adjusted on these nickels as every year went by. Also, I've heard Jefferson nickels don't make for good Hobo nickel-style carving because the metal used to make them isn't of as high quality as with Buffalo nickels. I was told Jefferson nickels will show pits when you carve them.
This same idea holds true with many parts of this hobby. When you learn what is normal, you can spot what is not normal a bit better. Cleaned coins, grading, RPMs, fakes and the list goes on.
I have always noticed the same. I think I read somewhere that they got better making the planchets and mixing the alloy better somewhere around the mid 50's, that is the reason for the changes you see. Go back and look at buffalos, they will exhibit the same coloring and wear patterns. By relief I can usually tell a pre-65 nickel by its appearance also, as well as cents from the 60's versus later. I just went back a week ago and was messing around with some quarters. Man, its really sad how a silver washington quarter is a pretty attractive coin actually. Then you look at the POS monopoloy money garbage they churn out nowadays......
One year that I notice a lot of darker grey nickels from is 1946, by '47 they seemed to have gone back to what they were doing until '42. One thing I notice with a lot of the war era silver nickels is that they were prone to laminations from poorly mixed alloys.
I bet it is because the planchets' alloy was not as well mixed, so you get the "woody" effect (happens with copper cents) more readily. The Mint has "improved" the quarter with the ATB series. It's still low relief, but they fixed the "stringy" look of the bust's hair.
