Lately I've been interested in pre-75 Jeffs because I love the way they look. I like the fact that they aren't as perfect and uniform as coins are today, so I always keep an eye out for them. Here's my question though: Why the heck are there so many 1964-D Jeffs?! The 2009 RB lists mintage at 1,787,297,160. It's the highest mintage (disregarding the sum of all mints for a particular year) since the Jeff was introduced, and the only year that comes even CLOSE is the 2000-D with 1,509,520,000. What's the story? Was there a historical event taking place at the time? Were there a bunch of trainees and they trained 'em with 1964-D Jeffs? Maybe the Mint did it on purpose knowing that some smart-aleck like me would notice it one day and post it on a forum for all to see...sneaky, sneaky Mints...
I don't have an explanation but I have noticed this. I work at McDonalds and enjoy collecting Pre 65- nickels, dimes, quarters. Out of my 40 nickels collection, more than half are 1964. However, I can't explain why.
There was a coin crisis in the early '60s. Congress blamed coin collectors for taking a lot of coins out of circulation thereby creating a coin shortage. Also the price of silver had reached a point that the intrinsic value of a silver coin exceeded its face value which further exacerbated the coin shortage. So Congress made some sweeping changes in 1964. Silver was removed from Dimes and Quarters beginning in 1965. Silver content of Half Dollars was reduced to 40% in 1965 and removed entirely a few years later. Mintmarks were removed from coins during the years 1965 to 1967 to discourage coin collecting. Production of 1964 Nickels continued well into 1965. I guess Congress figured that with a HUGE mintage of '64 Nickels no one would collect them and they would all remain in circulation.
When I first started collecting many years ago I would save every 1969 nickel on back. After a while and dozens of 1964's along with everything else, I rolled 3/4 of the 1964's up and deposited them in my bank account. I kept/keep only the really REALLY good ones I find, which in itself is rare from circulation since most are pretty beaten up. Now if I could just come across an elusive SMS version. I know... "fat chance buddy"!
