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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 8228884, member: 42773&quot;]So let me say first off that I&#039;m not a variety collector. It&#039;s just too tedious for my personality, which is rather rife with ADD - jack of all trades, master of none, etc. I don&#039;t even collect dates sets (although I did way back in the day). But I&#039;ve been trying to master a handful of famous varieties for those situations where I&#039;m in a small show and I&#039;ve exhausted every dealer&#039;s inventory for the things I do collect (ancients, world, and medals), and I still have time to kill because a <i><b>real</b></i> coin collector stays at a show until security asks him to leave because it&#039;s after closing time and people want to have supper. Whatever. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway - here&#039;s what I&#039;ve gleaned from the internet about the 18/7 Buffalo. Help me out if I&#039;ve got anything wrong. (There&#039;s a good chance I have.) As far as diagnostics go, the 7 intersects the date in such a way that the openings of the 8 form half-moons, and the mintmark is always rotated about 4 degrees counterclockwise to vertical. If you draw a straight line across the top of the D, the line will intersect the word CENTS right around the letter N. I also understand that all examples of this variety were struck from only two dies, so the mintmark is consistent across all specimens.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1446395[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>One thing I&#039;ve noticed is that the angle of the mintmark, being so slight, oftentimes does not come through clearly on images because of the lighting. For example, here is the highest-graded example by PCGS. In the large image it almost looks like the D is tilted <i>clockwise</i>...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1446405[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>But when you zoom in close, it shows the correct orientation...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1446406[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Almost all known examples live in the Good to Poor range. Higher grades are rare, the highest exceedingly so. I&#039;ve read that the most common fakes are ordinary 1918 D nickels with altered dates. I think I found <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/275058276329?hash=item400ac037e9:g:iTYAAOSwm4tg0MXq" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/275058276329?hash=item400ac037e9:g:iTYAAOSwm4tg0MXq" rel="nofollow">one on eBay</a>. The date looks funky because the 7 doesn&#039;t run straight across the top of the 8, the angles of the numbers in general don&#039;t match the authentic version, and the mintmark is definitely vertical, not tilted...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1446423[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>What do y&#039;all think? I have no desire to buy one of these coins attributed, and I don&#039;t expect to cherrypick one anymore than I expect to win the lottery, but I keep playing the lottery, so...think there&#039;s a chance?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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