With 1883 Liberty Nickel having both cents and without cents varieties for obvious reasons I am wondering why the with cents variety is so much higher than without having nearly 3X higher mintage?
Because the w/o cents was considered unusual and there were rumors that the government was going to withdraw them from circulation. Very many were saved. Needless to say, they are very common. the 'with cents' variety were not saved since they became the 'norm'.
It was one of things that people found out about the "mistake" and hoarded a lot of the "no cents" versions thinking they were going to be valuable some day. That's why there are a lot of the "no cents" version available in high grades.
There were actually stories in all major newspapers talking about how the No Cents nickels were worth $5. Now, what happened is they confused the racketeer nickel story, (gold plating the new nickels and passing them off as $5 gold pieces), but newpapers back then were not well known for their editorial control, especially certain papers. It was the era that spawned the term "yellow journalism". So, every toll booth operator, subway collector, etc inspected every nickel they got and saved the "no cents" nickels. Its a classic case of coins the general public THINK will be valuable in the future never will. Just look at bicentennial coins everyone saved.
That's what I figured but just couldn't understand why they wouldn't have saved both like with westward journey or the state quarters even the '09 Lincoln cents with different varieties in the same year
Because all of the news stories ONLY talked about the no cents nickels. The other nickels were just like all subsequent nickels. You have to remember that these were not coin collectors, only general public. Coin collecting had never been a "thing" like it was in the 1960's here, so the general public had no concept of things like saving both types.
Also the version with "cents" had a much lower mintage near the end of the year hence the increased value.
I believe the version without the word Cents had a much HIGHER mintage than the one with the word CENTS sir.