"Black Nickels" does anybody know about them? I'm going through a few dozen original BU rolls of 1950's and 60's Jefferson's right now - they were in a bank vault for over 40 years and have all seized up. Those that are familiar with this knows what happened the old plastic tubes had actually shrank and turned the nickels into a solid mass. Getting them out can wait for another discussion as it is a challenge to say the least but if you fool with original rolls your sure to run into it from time to time in Lincolns and Jefferson's. What I want to know now is there a market for those Black Beauties? I'm finding a few and they are charcoal black as can be so different from the others. I remember somewhere someone had some and they brought a premium but do not remember how much or where to go with them??
"Black Nickels" .......interesting, though i've never heard of that. hope someone in the know, chimes in. good luck!
Ben, As I recall, we had a pretty good debate about this awhile ago. If you do search about black beauty, you will find about a dozen useful threads. Here is the one which I was involved in. http://www.cointalk.com/forum/t40260-2/ Hope this helps.
Thanks I did finally do that Thanks I did finally do that and there is some info but I'm looking for a market or someone into such things - these nickels are so different you can spot them a mile away. Now there not the blue/black that you sometimes find in old proof sets but they are different to be sure. I'm going to end up with most of a roll of the 1958-P dated ones all charcoal black - if I remember right it had something to do with the annealing of the planchets I think. I should have saved that article, oh well you never know what to keep and what to pass on.
Somewhere in my years of clutter I have close to a roll of Black Beauties. I sold a few in the past and not for much. Might have gotten as much as $2. It's been a while. I got them at face from my dealer. He was going to put them in the drawer as change. I'd suggest checking out ebay to see what they're doing these days.
Yes, there are many nickels from the 1950s in which the planchet's were annealed improperly and it resulted in a dark color. Those nickels are sometimes called "black beauties." Here is an example of a newer improperly annealed planchet:
