I just acquired this 1873 shield nickel and would love some help attributing the variety. I checked my Cherrypickers book and came up empty. Any specialists out there? It appears someone filed down the rims (for jewelry maybe). Thoughts?
It looks to be an 1873 Open 3. The rims look okay to me. There would be no reason for it to appear in Cherrypickers' Guide - I don't see any evidence for a die variety. Shield nickels are not catalogued by die cracks/breaks. It would be an enormous task as cracks/breaks are very common.
Thanks. I do agree with the lack of die varieties in the Cherrypickers. I’m keeping this one but is anyone aware of die state? I have not seen an XF/AU shield nickel with similar rims. I still think it has been tinkered with.
Rims look OK, got some nice die cracks but I don't see any major die breaks, or even minor die breaks. True but if there is ever to be a complete listing of die varieties they will have to be tracked someday.
Thanks. I assumed die cracks and breaks were synonymous, but a quick google search educated me. I have not seen any other clearly beveled rims (see last couple pics) on XF/AU shield nickels. If it continues to be confirmed as a non-issue, fantastic, I will not footnote my collection's Excel file as being 'altered'. Others have thoughts?
The SNV reference has a lot of information about die states, but only of those dies that also exhibit a significant variety (e.g., DD, RPD, Missing Leaf). Nobody is ever going to tackle a reference of dies that don't exhibit some other variety - you are talking tens of thousands of dies in some years. Collectors do pay attention to die states for shield nickels, but mostly as an aid to attribution of significant varieties.
And what a task that would be. 1867 alone has a mintage of just north of 30 million. Given how common die clashing and breakage is on dies that are not eroded, I'm going to ballpark the average mintage per die pair at 30,000, meaning there would be about 1,000 die pairs for this date. The 1921 Morgan dollar has the highest mintage and the highest number of die pairs cataloged, at somewhere around 400, but this is from several people looking at lots of readily available, uncirculated coins. Scrounging up enough 1867 nickels in good enough shape to identify 1000 die pairs is not a path I would start down. Edit: I missed @howards 's post saying we're talking tens of thousands of dies. I'll defer to his numbers and up my reluctance to wanting to identify all the 1867 die marriages by an order of magnitude.
In most cases, the only thing rarer than most varieties and errors, are the collectors that collect them. With the aging demographic of numismatists, eye sight plays a major role. If you have to use a magnifying to see the error or variety most, but not all will not care.
Precisely. I only care if it has a significant premium since I am a series collector (e.g. collect all circ US coins by date and mintmark). If it carries a premium, I will just sell it, buy a common variety and use the leftover to fill another hole. Thank you everyone. Very helpful.
While this is somewhat true, the few people that are studying die marriages and buy and catalog these things don't expect to make money, but they're all having a great time doing it. This hobby is very broad, if something interests you, dig in to it. If it doesn't, dig into something else.
Make money by studying shield nickels? That's a laugh. I lose money every year on my SNV reference work. The only opportunity to make money is if I cherrypick something. But I usually just keep it, so no money made. Plus I have made my knowledge widely available, therefore limiting the cherrypick opportunities.
My math was off too. In 1867, die life was about 10000 coins. With 25 million minted, that's about 2500 dies. As the years went on the mint did get a little better die life, perhaps a maximum of 25000 by 1883. Still far too many to attempt a comprehensive survey of all die pairings. Especially since such a survey would require a trove of high grade coins where minor features weren't worn off.
Whoa. That's an absurd amount of dies. This is why I like early copper-nickel coins. The amount of varieties is insane. There are over 80 documented varieties for 1863 IHCs, and that's just counting major die breaks and other major varieties.
