I'm curious, I know that it adds a good amount of value if the nickels have full steps, but from searching through really nice coins that I've found and even some like mid 1960s rolls, I am having a hard time finding any with full steps, some get close but, no cigar. Are nickels just treated bad when they get struck or are full steps really that hard to get even in rolls?
The answer to this question varies drastically depending on which Jefferson Nickel issue you are talking about. Some are pretty common with full steps. Others are nearly impossible.
Ah, I guess I didn't realize that. IDK. I'm just like going through 10 rolls of 1963-Ps and I've found like 1 that's close. And a lot of my 53s and 54s are kind of sucky too
Which is to be expected. PCGS census data - 1953 MS coins - 743 1953 MS FS coins - 31 1954 MS coins - 1097 1954 MS FS coins - 139 One very rare date for Full Steps is the 1961 D Jefferson. In that date, PCGS has 985 graded without full steps, and only 6 with full steps. As mentioned above, there are no real rules or generalizations as to which dates and mints are poorly struck. Check out PCGS or NGC census data and make your own conclusions as to which dates are more or less common in Full Steps.
The most common full steps like 1941 you'll find as many as 8 or 9 per roll and most rolls will have at least 1. Other dates are virtually impossible to find even if you have dozens and dozens of rolls from many sources. The census understates how tough some of these really are because most of the FS's come from the same sources. Obviously the most common FS's are much more common than the census suggests because they aren't worth sending in except in very high grade..
As far as I know, the 1969-D is far and away the rarest of the FS nickels. 20 years later I still regret selling the best I've ever seen, including those in the PCGS gallery.
I've still got twenty or thirty Gem '69-D's I acquired before I started watching for FS. I keep imagining there will be some FS among them but the odds are exceedingly poor. A few of the post-'64 dates are very scarce. I've never found a '68-D, '68, or a '70-D either. Even the SMS's are less than 1% FS!
I sold the best 1969-D stepper I've ever seen (including the 2 FS coins in the PCGS gallery) to an Oklahoma collector circa 2005 for only $150 (that seemed a lot back then). In retrospect, that was quite the bargain.
Ouch!!! It was a lot harder to know what was rare in those days. I checked a few rolls but not enough to know if they were rare or not but I looked at a lot of mint sets and had never even seen one very close. Since then I've seen a couple that are close but nothing certain. Both of them have a step so weak it almost blends into the others under the third pillar.
