Hi, This is just a general question regarding buffalo nickels, why are they so expensive compared to wheat pennies. I have started collecting these nickels and was amazed at the prices. I can go to any pawn shop or eBay online store and buy a roll of pennies for 5-10 dollars, but nickels are like 15-40 dollars per roll. Is it because the buffalo nickels are older?
Well, for fun, I just counted up the entire mintage figures for Buffalo Nickels (excluding proofs) and came up with 1,212,895,399. That's for every year from 1913-1938. Just to use the single highest mintage year of Lincoln Wheat Cents (1944 Philadelphia), there were 1,435,000,000 minted. If we use just the five highest mintage years (1944P, 1956D, 1957D, 1945P, and 1946P) total minted coins is now 5,616,713,100. So, I would say mintage does indeed have something to do with values. I'd also say that, due to poor design, many of the original Buffalo Nickels have worn to the point where the dates are illegible, thereby decreasing the number of remaining specimens with dates (and again increasing the value of dated coins.)
Generally speaking to a general question...average circulated wheat cents are worth about 3 cents each. Average circulated Buffalo nickels are around 50 cents each.
Just making sure. You should see how it is around here. We can never tell about some of you new ones.