1926 Buffalo 5¢

The other day our long-time friend Bill Fivaz answered a query we sent to him for a customer. We thought his reply should be shared. There are a LOT of opportunities for treasure hunting among certified coins! Here it is, with his permission:

Dave Bowers at Stack's sent me a hard copy of your e-mail to him asking about the 'groove' on the obverse of the Buffalo 5¢ above the tie on the braid as well as the 'fur line' on the bison on the reverse. Here are some of my thoughts with reference to either Mint State or very high grade circulated pieces:

The groove and the fur line are really a matter of degree, indicating, in general, how well the coin is struck. There's no measurement on how far the groove should extend nor how pronounced the line on the reverse should be. In a contribution I made to Dave's recent grading book (get one if you don't have a copy, it's called Grading Coins by Photographs) I say the following in regard to the strikes in this series: 'I'd say that less than 2% of the entire (Buffalo nickel) mintage would be considered full details or completely detailed strikes; possibly 15 to 20% would fall into the 'sharp' category (where the groove above the tie on the braid is easily visible); about 50% would be 'typical', and the remaining 30% would be 'weak strikes.''

In order to get a fix on what a sharp or full strike coin should look like, try to find 10 to 15 Mint State 1913 Type 1 specimens and look at the groove and fur line on those. Chances are good that they will be strong and well defined as the hubs and dies were fresh (the first year of issue) and very little die erosion had occurred. A caveat, however: don't expect all subsequent dates to look this sharp as the hubs started deteriorating and design elements on the coins were muted the longer they were used.

You might also want to look at an uncirculated or very high grade circulated (EF or AU) 1921-P or S as the Mint changed the OBVERSE die in that year and the groove is very defined. They returned to the old obverse hubs after that one year. Early strikes of any given year, especially if new hubs were made, will show much crisper details as well, so it's really a matter of chance as to when the particular coin you're observing was struck by those dies.

As to recommending any dealers who would have 'sharp detailed' Buffalo Nickels, again, it's really a matter of looking for them. As Dave points out, very few dealers pay attention to the strike on this series...if the slab says 'MS-65', 99% of them don't care if it's well struck or not - it's a MS-65 because that's what the label says! Your challenge (if you can beat me to them!) is to locate those MS-65s (or 63's, etc.) that are well struck for the date and are offered at the same price as the weaker struck examples.

I hope the above has helped a bit.