I got a Buffalo nickel for change over the weekend.
I don’t even remember where I was or what I bought, but when I got home Saturday I noticed I’d been given a Buffalo nickel. I saw it when I was going through my change; I usually keep the quarters, and put any pennies, nickels, & dimes into the big change thingee we have on the front desk at work, and when it gets filled I bring it across the street to Range Bank to do my little part to help out with the national coin shortage.
Only...does a Buffalo nickel still count? It IS a nickel, right?
Now, the only reason I know what a Buffalo nickel is is that, when I was a kid, I was into coin collecting for a little while (yes, my geekiness goes that far back, believe it or not). I used to have those blue books where you’d collect each kind of coin from each year, press them in the book, and then gaze at them, wondering why you couldn’t find a 1943 steel penny or an old Mercury dime.
Just think what I would’ve been like if I was a kid when state & national park quarters were issued!
Anyway, that’s how I know what a Buffalo nickel is. It’s the nickel they issued before Jefferson nickels (the current ones) came out in 1938. So I know my Buffalo nickel is at least 82 years old; unfortunately, because it’s so worn, I have no idea just HOW old it is.
In case you didn’t know, they grade coins on a scale that starts at uncirculated and goes down from there, depending upon how worn said coin is. Well, seeing as how I can’t even see the date the coin was minted, I’m guessing mine might be in the “Melt It Down For A Doorstop” grade, assuming, of course, they have a “Melt It Down For A Doorstop” grade.
Which I’m guessing they don’t.
Buffalo nickels were produced in the U.S. from 1913 to 1938, which means mine can’t be any older than (ironically) 107 years. The back of it’s in okay shape; I can see the buffalo and the “E Pluribus Unum”, among other things. But on the front of the coin the head of the Native American chief is almost gone, especially around his neck where, it appears, the minting date was stamped. I don’t feel bad, though; according to Wikipedia, most Buffalo nickels have the date worn off, so I guess I’m in good company!
And according to something else I found online, Buffalo nickels without a date have their value greatly decreased. I mean, there are some specimens of the coin that are worth $1,800; even average examples of the nickel are worth at least 35 cents. But with the date worn off?
Well, they’re worth about a nickel.
So I’m left to wonder just how this particular Buffalo nickel was given to me for change. Did someone accidentally pay for something with part of their coin collection? Did they know, but because the coin’s worth a nickel, decide to use it as a nickel? Or has it been a coin that’s been circulating among the general crowd for 8 or 9 decades now, and I’m the first person geeky enough to notice it, thereby taking it out of circulation and ending its mysterious 8 or 9 decade-long voyage?
I tell ya...some days, it’s dangerous to look in your pockets. It really is.
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