I've been casually looking for a nice three cent nickel for my type set for a while and haven't found the one yet. Part of the reason I haven't found one yet is because I'm not confident I can differentiate a cleaned one from an original one. I want an original coin for my set, so if anyone has some good examples of original and cleaned circulated coins please post them and explain how to tell which are cleaned and which aren't. Thanks!
1865 seems to be a good year to find some nice examples of the nickel three cent piece . A lot have nice clash marks and repunched dates. I do have a collection of nickel three cent pieces . Let me see if I have some imaged to post. Like a lot of coins of this era, the mid dates are the keys. The 1870's most only have mintage's under a million. In 1877 only 510 proofs were struck.
for the most part yes....I'm not sure on the one 73 but yes unc. and XF/Au. coins. one is the open 3 and the other is the closed 3. the 74 was a very nice coin but the seller never smashed his staples on the 2x2's and it took a nasty scratch across the bottom of the lll.
PR64, one of the approximately only 600 minted that year. My only proof pre-1900s US coin. Totally love it, and got it for a great price!!
Three cent nickels can be confusing! I had to ask for advice about this one that I lucked into on a bad-picture gamble: Full of clashes and cracks, weird denticles -- but that seems to be the rule rather than the exception in this series. I find them a lot more interesting now, simply as a result of trying to figure out this one coin.
I have always liked trimes, but my favourite is a circulated 1889 - because by then it was quite an anachronism a 25 year old design, small mintages save the 1881 and most of the examples from 1889 are proofs, BU etc. It is said that these circulated to some extent into the early 20th century. But even by then they must have been fairly rare to see.
