Every time this topic rears it's ugly head, I am forced to disagree with Doug about the origin of the term "black beauty". The coins designated as black beauties by ANACS with improperly annealed planchets are consistent with what Bernard A Nagengast calls black beauties in his book: THE JEFFERSON NICKEL ANALYST. "Curiously, the Philadelphia Mint did such a uniformly good job in producing black nickels in 1958, that some enterprising coin dealers promoted the coins, selling them as "Black Beauties." These coins actually have a certain eye-appeal, being uniformly glossy or satiny black. There are some 1959 black beauties as well, but they are much less common." Nagengast is considered one of the foremost experts on the Jefferson Nickel series and I trust both his research and knowledge on the subject. To this day, Doug is the only person I have ever encountered who believes that the term "black beauty" is derived from toned proof Jefferson Nickels. Without corroboration from another source, I just can't buy that story.
TPGs do not do free grading. If they determine the coin to be ungradable, they say so...and also charge you for it. Your coin, as stated by the experts in this thread, is not the "black beauty". It looks environmentally damaged (corroded), so it really is a spender.
Oh well I found my childhood collection when I was 7-8 one of my copper pennies was in a leather book and has a nice red tone but with a shady layer over it I'm guessing the copper and zinc?
I saw this thread a while back and knew i had a dark nickle somewhere, i found it and thought i would post it and see what you all think. some years ago i got 20 or so rolls of 1963 and 64 nickles. a guy brought them in the store that i worked, the checkers got all the silver, they didn't want the nickles. i found it in one of these rolls 1964, which i pulled out and put away. I took this to coin club last night no one had heard of Black beauty or Sintered planchets, two of our dealer members weren't there, so i'm going to post and see what you think. Looks some what that NGC 1964 D on page 1 of this thread...
I just read this entire thread. No one mentioned that the OP's coin has a lot of wear. That coin is a circulated, corroded coin.
I have never heard of a "Black Beauty" Jefferson nickel but there are blue Jefferson nickels from the early 1960's as result of more than average amount of cobalt in the nickel. Primarily seen in the proof nickels. The color of the planchet took on a blue tint while going through the annealing process.
You might get free advice from a doctor or lawyer, but you'll never get free money from a banker. UNLESS you follow through on making those 15 transactions in the first 60 days to qualify for your "special" rebate!
Yes that is a theory that has often been reported and repeated, but I find little likelihood of it being even close to true. Why ? Because the Proof Jeffs from the period (late '50s through mid '60s) are so very well known for toning virtually every color of the rainbow, not just blue. And it is also important to note that the color, not even a hint of it, was not there when the coins were new. The color came with time as the coins toned. As a collector of original Proof sets I watched more than a few tone myself. In later years I once bought a coin lot, the lot was comprised of nothing but toned Proof Jeffs from this period, 182 of them to be exact. The colors ranged from pale golds to pinks, to purples, to blues, to reds, to greens - as I said virtually every color of the rainbow. I used to give these coins away as gifts to friends and fellow collectors. Here are a but few examples from that lot - Now was there "something" that caused the Proof Jeffs from this period which encompassed roughly a decade to tone this wide variety of pale neon colors ? Undoubtedly so, for it was never before or since. But the evidence, the coins themselves being such a wide range of colors, clearly indicate it was not cobalt. Yes cobalt would result in blues and maybe even purples, but not golds, pinks, reds, and greens that these coins are well known for being.
I've seen certain years with colors on the proof nickels that I wondered if the cello they were wrapped with may have caused this. The ones I found were all ones still in the mint cello in the 1964 proof cents. But if the cello was an issue, why didn't all these coins have this issue? It must have been how certain planchets were handled? I even found this issue on the cents in the 60's as well. One coin was toned silver. I'm not saying the coin is silver, just toned that color.
