Circulated pre-1960 nickels

[postvmvs]

I know a lot people here pull pre-1960 nickels, even though circulated examples don't seem to carry a premium (other than war nickels and a few key dates). This has been discussed before, but I was wondering if anyone had any real world examples of success selling these coins for more than face value. I mean they are nice, and kinda old but I believe a man needs only so many 1957D nickels?

 

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[ArkieBassMan]

Someone on this forum sold a few rolls of common date pre-'60s for 2x face on Craigslist awhile back.

 

[garbageman]

Back in January of 2009 I sold 2,363 Jefferson nickels from 1959 and earlier for 5 1/2 cents each to a local coin shop for a total of $130.00. These were from my late father's collection and this was after I went through them and took out the silvers and better dates. -Garbageman

 

[SFBayArea]

Ones from the 50's are completely pointless to collect other than 1950-D. 30-40's are probably ok to keep. Just my 2 cents. There is nothing rare about nickels from the 50's other than if you had a time machine, you can go back to the 50's and exchange them for silver dimes, quarters, halves, or dollars.

 

[SilverFace]

I've sold some on CL a year or two ago but I don't remember exactly how much I got for them. I believe it was approx. 1 1/2 - 2 times fv. As I've stated before copper & nickel aren't nearly as good investments as silver obviously but both are a much better store of value than the USD. And when US nickels are changed to a steel composition like Canadian nickels then maybe the older Jefferson nickels might have a little collectible value also.

I'm not sure if pre-'60 nickels will ever be thought of like wheat's cents are since the Lincoln cent had a reverse design change and the Jefferson nickel didn't but I still seem to find almost as many wheat's cents in circulation as pre-'60 nickels even today.

Many of the pre-'64 nickels have mintages that are relatively low. For example the '58 nickel has a mintage of only 17,963,652. So far I've only found ONE cent in circulation that has a lower mintage than even a '58 nickel and that is a '38S wheat cent (mintage 15,180,000).

Like I said above I think the main reason wheat's are more collectible than early Jefferson nickels is because the cents had a reverse design change and the nickels didn't. But many of the common date wheat's of the '40's & '50's had huge mintage figures (some near or over 1b) and yet they still have some collectible value just because they are wheat's. Yet many of the nickels from the '40's and '50's have mintages of under 20m or even 10m and don't seem to have much if any collectible value at all (in avg. cir. condition).

I suppose only time will tell if and when collectors start to appreciate the value of pre-'64/'60 Jefferson nickels but even if they don't the intrinsic value of nickels is sure to increase over time so as far as I'm concerned nickels are a no lose investment/store of value. Plus I can find about as many silver nickels as silver dimes in boxes - although nickels take a lot longer to search - for me anyway.

HH

 

[Farchaus2k]

I save them all but not because I plan to make ton of money off them. I'm saving them for the kids and one day the grand kids. Maybe in their lifetime they'll be worth something, and if not they can hand them down as well.

 

[OLYCRH79]

I saw an ad in Coin World magazine a few months back for "remains of the day" Jefferson Nickels. It was the companies left overs from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. I think the ad says something like "we take out the silver nickels, and the 50-d from Jefferson Nickel collections and then we dump them all in a bin to be machine rolled, come get these nice "remains of the day rolls for your collection" They were selling for about 8 dollars a roll.

Now whether anyone actually bought any, I have no clue. I save anything 1949 or earlier. If I get a really nice AU or nicer one from the 50's I'll keep it though.(and obviously any 50-d's not that I've found any)

Andy