The two 80-D’s could be brothers with the dark planchets and distressed fields. Although mine is the worse of the two.
1981-D Sometimes coincidence is just a matter of random timing. Yesterday I got a flyer from David Lawrence Rare Coins, so I clicked on the link for No Reserve lots to see if there were any bargains. Their auction included just one Jefferson nickel - yep, it was an MS66 1981-D. This is their picture. (Not my coin!) (Note: copyrighted material is used without permission for educational purposes.) Their photo makes the face and forehead look rough and not very pleasing. If nothing else, it makes me feel much happier with mine, and I would not trade them my coin for theirs. NGC has only graded a few hundred of this date and mint mark, so there are only 5 graded at MS67 and none higher. Is it safe to assume people just don't think it cost-effective to grade these? One might think that are loads of high-end coins sitting in albums everywhere and that you could just grab one if you need it. That is probably not true any more. On the other hand, if I thought I could grab top-pop honors just by sending this in, and then sell it to someone with registry fever for a fortune, I might, instead, end up with an MS65 in a slab that's worth more than the coin. It's fun to contemplate this conundrum. Someday I may get a few graded just to see what happens.
1981-S Proof The matte part of the cameo is starting to cure to an attractive golden color. This year has two types of proofs listed. There is only one slot in the Dansco, and I'm not really interested in dividing the proofs based on the clarity of the mint mark. So this is the one I have, which I kinda sorta think might be Type 2. Or maybe Type 1. Or whatever. Yesterday I forgot to mention something about the 1981-D. For some reason this was one of the years the original collector did not have represented in the Dansco. This is a good example of the bifurcated market (which @Lehigh96 has commented on). If I had gone to a high-end seller and bought a slabbed MS66 it would have been around $100. Instead, I went to a well-known seller of commodity coins. They sell virtually every grade of every year in a huge online catalog. From them, I was able to order a "Gem BU" for $2.77. There ought to be a cottage industry just buying their Gem coins, grading them, and selling at a whole other price tier.
1982-D This was another open slot in the Dansco. It seems odd that all of the early dates were present, but the Denver mints from 1981, 1982, and 1983 were missing from the set. This example was graded MS66 by PCGS, but now it's raw again.
1983-P NGC has graded only 84 of these altogether. Five have full steps. None of the graded coins exceed MS66. I was curious about the dark spot on the chin. This a crop of the full resolution of my original photo. The polish marks are easily seen on the field in front of the face and on the collar. Some strike weakness shows up in the hair and the nose. The dark marks seem to have formed over planchet flaws. Needless to say, coins are only examined at 5x magnification for grading. This kind of magnification is only good for understanding the limitations of the manufacturing process, and how the coins manage to look good in spite of how they are made.
Nice 5FS. I was looking through NGC. There has only been 1 84P to make a 6FS designation. Sorry no Photos.
I could not find a photo either. Here's a MS67 5FS at Heritage which is as close as I could come. There's also a 1984-P 5C MS66 Full Steps PCGS but that sale is five years ago. This is the 1984-P in context in the Dansco. It's easier to see that this is just a dark looking planchet, and the coin just seems to absorb light.