This is an old story of mine, which made the rounds on various blogs and newsletters when it got shared by other people. It came up in a conversation on the General Discussion forum recently, so I've decided to retell it (since all of the earlier web appearances of it seem to have gone the way of the dodo). OK, here goes: In the early ‘90s, around 1992 or so, I used to help out in Wright’s Coin Shop in Asheville, NC. It was a busy day with lots of customers in and out of the shop, and Bill Wright (RIP) was buying a good bit of stuff that came in the door. One customer had what he said was two or three rolls of Buffalo nickels. For the sake of the story, let's say it was three rolls. I forget the exact number of rolls- but it was just a few. Bill took the rolls to his desk, opened the wrappers and peeked at the end coins, confirmed they were circulated Buffalo nickels, and quoted the man his usual buying price for average circulated Buffalo nickels. The man agreed, took his money, and left the shop, never to be seen again. Later, after closing time, Bill spilled out the rolls to examine the full contents. It turned out that only the end coins were Buffalo nickels. The rest were modern Jeffersons; mostly the early 1990s-vintage stuff that was in circulation at the time. So the customer was a crook. Let's say there were three rolls, each with one Buffalo nickel at each end. Bill had paid for a hundred and twenty Buffalo nickels, and gotten only six! But here comes the twist. One of those measly six coins that Bill got turned out to be a genuine 1937-D "3-legged" Buffalo, in F-VF-ish condition. I'd say it graded about F15. So the scammer had scammed himself! We laughed so hard at that. There's no telling how the guy knew Bill wouldn't examine the full contents of the rolls right away, on the spot. He took a big risk by trying that stunt. And Bill was the sort that would've put a .45 caliber hole in a crook without blinking. Poetic justice happens sometimes. I got to witness it, that one time. So that's my 3-Legged Buffalo story. As of this posting (December, 2024), after 48 years of collecting, I still have never personally owned a ‘37-D 3-Legged Buffalo.
Wait! That's it? I still have Popcorn left. ( Don't hit me, Just a joke) Awesome story truth be told.
That's how it happened. I guess I could have embellished the tale. Maybe the scammer customer was really a werewolf, and Bill Wright shot him with some silver dimes in a shotgun when he came back? Would that have been more entertaining?
Great story! I have owned one three legged Buffalo. It was when I was a dealer. I had it for a very short time and flipped it for $100 margin. It was a very low percentage mark-up on a thousand dollar sale, but that’s how it worked. If you could buy a certified one for 11 or 12 hundred in EF, it was an almost instant $100 margin. When was a dealer, there was huge interest in the key dates and varieties. The common dates were mostly ignored. The result was the key dates became over priced in my opinion. The three legged Buffalo is really pretty common, but it’s famous and considered to be “a key.” Hence the high price.
I have long been puzzled by coins like the three legged buffalo and 2 over 1 Mercury dime. Are they considered errors or varieties? I actually keep them in the box with all of my error coins.
To me, the Grant with Star commemorative coin is a variety because it was designed that way. But I do not think that the mint deliberately designed a three legged Buffalo hence it is a mistake/error.
To me, a "variety" reflects something that happened to a die, so that multiple similar or identical copies could exist. An "error" is something that happened before or during striking to an individual planchet (or a blank) - incomplete planchets ("clips"), multiply struck or unstruck coins, strike-throughs, even wrong-planchet errors. This isn't entirely "complete and consistent", as the logic folks say. For example: There are multiple bronze 1943 cents, but I consider those errors, not varieties. I think that's the mainstream view. There are multiple 1913 Liberty nickels, but I consider those to be fraudulent strikes, not errors or varieties. They were made on purpose, when they weren't supposed to be. The mainstream view disagrees. The mainstream view of "strike doubling" is that it's damage. I don't see how you can call that damage, but call a multiply-struck coin (for example, struck once, then struck again off-center) an error. Fortunately, I'm not an authority, so I don't have to have my story straight.
The 3 legged Buffalo is exactly what it should be. It is an example of what any coin struck from that particular die pair in that particular die state should look like. An error would be a coin from that particular die pair in that particular die state that somehow DID exhibit the fourth leg.
Errors as said above are a 1 off coin. Even a cud or a die crack progresses with each and every strike. (for the most part) The over polishing of a die to remove part of a leg will strike thousands of coins before the die stage changes significant enough to notice a difference in the details.
I have a 1899 P Morgan with a rim cud, VAM6A (I think). ANACS teed me off, I saw no circulation wear on the coin, seemed a solid 63, graded it AU58 with the attribution. I'm still mad about that, thought I'd share the Festivus Season, where we air grieviances. Exciting New Years Eve here, wife has gone to bed an hour ago and I'm watching football and perusing CT.
Exactly the same as my New Years Eve here on Long Island, NY. Except we had an incredibly loud thunderstorm with lightning that lit up the house even though all the shades were drawn. I would have gone to bed after the game ended but I thought my wife wanted to see the ball drop in Times Square. I woke her at ten to twelve and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and said she wasn't interested in getting up. I watched the ball drop and was in bed five minutes later. And to think, in my younger days we would stay up all night and play touch football the following morning. You younger folks now have a sense of what to expect as you advance to your golden years. Happy New Year y'all.
The good news: by the time you reach our age, going to bed instead of going out to party is going to sound absolutely fantastic.
This might not be the "official" definition, but to me in order to be an error it has to be more than just unintentional; it has to be something, that if a Mint employee were to look at it, would decide it's defective and reject it from being put into circulation (but they just missed it because they mint coins in the millions, billions these days, and can't possibly catch everything). That's why for example, I don't call a 1922 plain Lincoln an "error" because they just didn't care that the D mintmark that should have been there wasn't. So I wouldn't say the 3-legged counts as an "error" by that definition. I also think an error should be genuinely accidental, which is why I don't think things like "Eisenhower dollar struck on 3 dime planchets" should count because nobody can convince me that happened accidentally! That's a federal crime where the perpetrators just didn't get caught. (1913 Liberty head nickels fall into this category for me. As would "extra-leaf" Wisconsin quarters; that wasn't an accident and nobody can convince me otherwise.) So my definition of an error: a coin accidentally made in a way that would get it rejected for circulation if a Mint employee examined it.
