I went off to buy a proof half at the LCS, but it was sold. Instead, I found a Dansco with an essentially complete set of Jefferson nickels. The dealer just put it in the display case yesterday. I only had half a dozen Jeffs of my own, so I took the plunge for about $2 a coin. I prefer taking pictures to filling holes anyway. This gives me about 160 new coins to photograph. I've now got them all up through 2000 except for some newer D mints. The original collector put together a beautiful set. Since it is now shared with me, I will share his efforts the best I can. Here's the first coin in the set. I hope to post each as time goes on. If you have a coin of the same date and mint mark to show, please do so. If you have others, be patient; I intend to get to every date and mint mark. My format will be a full-color jpeg image followed by an animation with slightly less color accuracy. (It's the nature of .gif files. They only allow 256 unique colors per frame.) 1938
According to @Lehigh96 's excellent article, Jefferson Nickels Reverse of 38 vs Reverse of 40, I judge the three 1939's I posted to be 1939 REV OF 40 5C MS, 1939 D REV OF 40 5C MS, and 1939 S REV OF 38 5C MS. This coin's steps lack sharp vertical edges at either end of the steps and it does not have a sharply defined top step. The 1939-D, above, has both, even though the general weakness of the steps wipes out many other details. This coin is at the furthest top right of the first page of the Dansco. I wonder if it picked up a little annular discoloration from air seepage in the album, or whether this darkening around the edge occurred before it went into the folder. 1939-S
Thanks. They get even better, so I appreciate the work of the original collector. I hope they are photographed brightly enough - the reflections are bright white even to the naked eye and have to be toned down in photos. Why did I commit myself to photographing a couple of hundred tiny mirrors??
The set has a nice consistent look across the pieces and seems a uniform grade range. They are all raw, and the kind of high end, lower cost coins that my LCS doesn’t stock. If I upgrade I will need to go online. Getting compatible coins from photos is tough. Or I could “buy the plastic” and break them out, but I still would have no guarantee they would really be better in hand. I think I’ll keep them as they are. I’ll just overgrade them shamelessly in my inventory spreadsheet and I’ll have the best coins at no extra cost.