Several years ago I had to go for training in Colorado Springs, CO and as I often do when I travel I checked out all the local coin shops hunting for the FS's. I stopped at one shop and went through his stock picked out a few nickels and noticed a half roll of 53D nickels. I forget what I paid but threw them in my bag to look through on a day of leisure. When I got home from the training and looked through all the nickels I had purchased (for I had gone to several coin shops and attended a show in Denver while out there) here was this half roll of 1953D's, well as I often do I drempt of finding a half roll of full steppers or D/S's. This is what I found! But wait! It gets better! Fast forward several years and I'm going through my hoard (I mean collection) thinking I have so many 1943D's I really should sell some. Now I know that High Grade 1943D FS nickels are fairly common and inexpensive so I looking at these closer I believe all are minimum MS65-66 with a few maybe MS67 and maybe I'll send a couple of the higher grade ones off for certification. Well low and behold this half roll are all RPM#9's. This in my opinion is a very minor RPM but it has made my day!
Nickelman,that is a very nice 1943D War Nick you've got there.Don't forget that these coins (1942-45) are .350 (35%) fine silver. Aidan.
Yes I realize they are silver. Maybe I wasn't totally clear in my post. The whole half roll was 1943D not 1953D as marked! And all 20 are high grade FS RPM#9.
RPM Stands for Repunched Mint Mark. Up until the late 80's mintmarks where punched onto the dies by hand and the dies being very hard often times the mintmark punch needed to be stuck several times in order to get the proper depth. Well if the individual moved the punch slightly between hits then you get a second impression on the die RPM. Some are pretty dramatic and others like the 1943D RPM#9 is very minor. Sometimes the individual punched the die with the wrong mintmark and noticed and just picked up the correct mintmark punch and punched over which is called an OMM (Over mint Mark) D/S or S/D. Other times the punch was no oriented correctly on the first punch and then moved to the correct possition and completed. These you end up with Over Horizontal or Inverted mint marks. With the Jefferson Nickel series there are hundereds documented and new ones being discovered all the time.
