OK so i am fairly new to coin collecting as i just started when my aunt gave me my uncles collection after he passed. i was looking thru it a few days ago and found this.....
Maybe it was in a fire or something. Yes it is a real Buffalo nickel, but I would guess the value has been reduced to 5 cents.
If that -- since it no longer shows a denomination, human cashiers might not take it, and it might have lost enough weight that machines will reject it.
If that's the case, I turn it in to my credit union as mutilated coin and receive full face value. I do it at the end of the year with my metal detecting scrub coins.
Yeah, a coin has to be really badly damaged to make it impossible to exchange. But it becomes more trouble, and trouble carries a cost as well. To me, a coin that has to be set aside for special disposition is worth less than one I can just spend. ...wait, what did I just say?
Many of the damaged cents I find in Coin Star rejection bins will get rejected by the self check-out machines at Walmart but I have no trouble at all passing them on to human cashiers in supermarkets. I was unaware that banks would not take damaged coins, though.
That's why I save them up for a year and when I have to go to the bank anyway (credit union) they do it for me. It's been like $1.50 most times. I only have half that this year because not enough silver. Just a couple of mutilated coin star dimes. Usually I get a real bent out quarter or chewed up nickel along with the disintegrating zinc cents. I did find this bad boy today:
What does the buffalo weigh? I have my doubts as to it being a real coin. Looks more like a poor quality one sided casting..
It weighs 3gs I thought it looked like a buffalo struck on a foreign split planchet. But as I said I am fairly new to this.