With the new nickel design how long to you think it will be till the 'old' Jeffersons become a scarce sight in pocket change? I remember as a kid I in the 70's I got wheaties in change and when ever I got a roll of cents from the bank always had a few whesties in each. Can't remember the last time I got a wheatie in change? Never got a Buffalo nickel in change and Jeffs had been out for about 30+ years at that point. Just wondering y'all thought.
It'll probably be a while. They only minted, what, 20 billion jeffersons in the last 15 years alone. Secretly, I hope they'll be scarce soon, now that I've put my unc. rolls in a capsule and buried it in my yard.
Well i'd say starting now they will begin fading away. Even now, 99% of the pre-1999 nickels I get in change are so banged up as to be near worthless for collectors. I'm not so sure the pre-westward journey smile geez, i'm already old.. a 2003 nickel is already a type coin) including most key dates will ever see much value in circulated mint state. It was almost a relief that we had two years without steps. Back to the grind.
Most of the nickels I get in change nowadays are post 1980. So with the same design they tend to be pretty common for about 25 years. With a differnt design I would expect them to go more quickly (The buffalos pretty much were all gone in about 20 years after the Jefferson came out. Most of the wheat cents were gone within 20 years too. So I would expect them to start becoming scarce between 2016 and 2026.
Odd....the most common/consistant date nickel I seem to get in change is 1964. In NYC circulated coins move in weird circles :goofer:
Have you ever looked at what the mintage of the 1964 nickel was? 1,028,622,762 for Philly and 1,787,297,160 for Denver! I guess with the removal of silver starting in 65 they thought they would need a lot more nickels. I'm supprised we don't see more in change!
That was always my guess too, that the demand for nickels went up as dimes and quarters were hoarded, thus needing tons of nickels to make up for their shortage. It wasn't until the mid 90's that more nickels were minted in a single year than were minted in 1964, lol. I've done lots of roll searching and have found that almost 5% of the nickels I look through end up being 64's. I've found tons in change actually (especially 64-D's) and don't even blink when I see them anymore.
Ironically, some older dates have lost value over the years like the 38S or 52S. Would anyone care to offer theories?
Not to long ago I used to have fun with people that didn't know coins to well by saying I'll bet you that if you have more than one nickel in your pocket or purse that at least one will be a 1964. People thought that was a pretty neat trick. There still is a lot of them in change.
