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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;KBBPLL, post: 26061993, member: 104064&quot;]Nobody knows if originally it was only 5. The dies were already made for 1913 Liberty nickels. In fact, they shipped 10 pairs to San Francisco on 11/12/1912. </p><p>February 24, 1913 - &quot;Now that the new design five-cent nickel piece has been approved, would it not be well to destroy the dies and hubs of the 1912 design. The engraver has on hand a lot of working dies made for this mint and those sent to San Francisco and returned.&quot;</p><p>So the 3 was not hand engraved. They had already made Liberty head dies for both SF and Philly, and those dies existed from Nov 1912 until at least Feb 24, 1913. You may be referring to the 1913 pattern Buffaloes, which had both a rounded 3 and a flat 3? </p><p>Production of the new nickels was delayed by the Hobbs Manufacturing Company, who complained that they would mess up Hobbs&#039; counterfeit detection mechanism. My notes have the key piece to my assertion - &quot;January 7, 1913 - Experimental pieces of new Buffalo design struck. Fraser (sculptor) &quot;later wrote that he remembered several of the workmen commenting that the new piece struck more easily than the old.&quot;&quot;</p><p>The mint was attempting to prove that the new nickels were fine, as related to the complaints of this Hobbs person. The implication of this quote (to me) is that they were striking both the Liberty and the Buffalo nickels side by side as an experiment. There is a raised fin on all of the 5 1913 Liberties (reverse) and 3 of the J1950 Buffalo patterns (obverse) that leads me to believe that they were all struck in the same collar and press as an experiment. </p><p>I don&#039;t pretend to know more than the &quot;experts&quot; on this, but when I see a perpetuated theory about clandestine whatever in the coin world, I tend to be skeptical. The mint didn&#039;t record everything they did. They were under a lot of pressure to get the new nickels minted. This &quot;connected&quot; Hobbs guy was screwing everything up. This went on into February 1913. Who knows how many times they had to demonstrate that the new nickels were just as good as the old ones by striking them both. Meanwhile, Samuel Brown somehow grabbed the 1913 Liberty nickels, which I believe were legitimately coined as a demonstration, and his suspicious behavior afterwards spawned this whole thing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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