So my question is, Why are the 1883 with cents worth so much more than the without cents. There were more than 1/3 less made and if some people painted them gold and tried to sell them of as $5 coins there should be even less. I just don't understand so any insight would be helpful. Thanks
Welcome to the forum. Your question, it's just one of those mysteries of collecting. I guess many more people thought the w/o cents version were the more collectable nickel as the years went buy and loaded up on them. These coins were out of circulation. As years passed the w/cents version was spent or melted or lost but one way or the other they weren't saved like the w/o version. Nowadays they are harder to find thus causing the value difference. Again Welcome Ben
Hi, and to CoinTalk. I don't collect US coins, so I haven't a clue to your question's answer, except for the general observation that in 1883 5¢ was a significant enough sum that putting coins aside was not an option for much of the population, The perception may have been that the no cents coins were more likely to become valuable in the future, so more of them were taken out of circulation, and thereby preserved for us to enjoy today.
The mint began producing 1883 W/O early in the year in anticipation of the new release. But, once the coins were released, some were gold plated and passed off as $5 gold coins. When the mint began producing With Cents to stop frauds, newspapers wrote speculation that the Without cents would be collected and melted by the governement (Similar situation with WWII silver Nickels), and the papers encouraged everyone to save as many as they could find. So, now Without Cents are common in nearly any grade.
I think it was simply the case that it was a new coin and people saved them in hoards. The cents version came after the initial hoards had been put away.
Great question.... In short, the "no cents" nickel was saved in such great numbers that even today they are very common and cheap. What you should take away from this is that is not always right to judge a coin's value by its mintage when its survival rate (how many of the original mintage actually survived to this day) is often more important. Valuation of most things in a free market is driven by demand and supply. I'm of the opinion that demand is the primary driver of coin valuation, but it is not always the case, and not the case in your example. On the surface it would seem that the demand for the one year type coin (the 1883 "no cents" nickel) would surpass that of its lesser known and lesser minted example. After all, not that many people collect Liberty nickels by date, and if you want an example of the "with cents" version you have lots of other dates to choose from... So your first thought would be that the demand (and thus the price) for the "no cents" example would be much higher than its less popular brother, "with cents". However this would be an incorrect assumption because you would be ignoring the other half of the equation -- supply -- which skews the valuation the other way. Iin this case there is SO MUCH supply that the price is pressured downward more than cancelling out the demand of the unique 1883 "no cents" nickel. Specifically, the 1883 "no cents" nickel (with all the hoopla of a first year design and the gold plating and passing off as a gold half eagle, and the rumored recall) was saved in HUGE numbers in all grades from pristine to well circulated, and this huge supply artifically deflates the price of this coin even with the large demand typical of one-year-type coins. Hope this helps...Mike
