Just Bob

Congratulations! It's always a good feeling when you can find that last piece that you need to complete the set.

First off - Welcome to the forum. In your above posts, you compared the strike of the Heartland Collection coin to yours. While it is true that your coin appears to be more fully struck, this is only one of many criteria for determining the grade of a coin. For Mint State coins, other factors to consider are: luster, the number, size and location of contact marks, and eye appeal. However, your coin is showing wear in several places, which removes it entirely from the category of Mint State. The most obvious wear is on the top of Liberty's cap, the high points of the strands of hair, and the bust, on the obverse. On the reverse, look at the tops of the eagle's wings, the claws, and the beak and head. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the wear was not there. You believe your coin to be a higher grade than MS66. There are numerous tics, dings, and hits scattered over both sides. There are prominent marks on the cheek, cap, bust, clothing, and in the fields in front of and behind the portrait. There are many more on the reverse. Even without the obvious wear, these marks would put your coin in the lower MS range, and nowhere near MS66. Your coin also appears to have suspicious looking parallel lines on both sides. I have to agree with the above posts by Zadok and others. I have a feeling that it would come back from the grading service with an "altered surfaces" designation. These are probably not the responses you hoped to get, but they are honest opinions from members, some of whom are very knowledgeable.

Clear, cropped pictures, oriented correctly, would have been a great help, along with weight in grams and diameter in millimeters. But I think I found your coin anyway. Try this link: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s1427.html#RSC_0047

MS60

Here is a picture of the obverse from the Numismatic News site, for members who don't want to take the time to go through all of the pics and wait for all of the ads to load. As I said before, pretty impressive clash.

The obverse has a pretty impressive clash, in my opinion. It isn't often you see actual letters in the middle of a portrait.

Owning a coin with a mintage of only 25 pieces is very cool. It is definitely a keeper. Welcome to the forum.

I hope Katrina got her phone back.

Welcome to the forum. Standard weight of a '96 nickel is 5 grams, with a tolerance of .194 grams. This means that a nickel can weigh anywhere between 4.806 and 5.194 grams, so your coin is within mint tolerance. Mind if I ask what prompted you to weigh the coin in the first place? No judgement - I am just curious.

It resembles a coin of The Netherlands. According to several different sources, the inscription, MO ORDI PROVIN FOEDER BELG AD LEG IMP (MONETA ORDINUM PROVINCIARUM FOEDERATORUM BELGII AD LEGEM IMPERII) translates "regular coin of the provinces of the Belgium Confederation (or United Netherlands) by imperial decree." The only coins I have found with this combination of legend and the standing knight are 1 and 2 ducat gold coins. Yours does not appear to be gold, so I can't say what it is actually supposed to be.

I have waited three days for QA to swoop in and "defend the downtrodden." Looks like it isn't going to happen. Apparently, I am the only one who gets rebuked for speaking my mind bluntly to newbies. Oh, well. C'est la vie.

That "some guy" was Thomas L. Elder, writer, publisher, dealer, and producer of tokens and medals, and one of the organizers of the New York Numismatic Club. (J Sanford Saltus was also a founding member. Look him up for a tale of misadventure.) Tom Delorey (CaptHenway)_ has written a book cataloguing his tokens.

The variety number refers to the lathe lines in the obverse above the shield and in the lower part of the shield. There were apparently several dies with this effect, but I can't tell if yours is an exact match for this variety. I am also having trouble figuring out the weird strike on your coin. Here are pictures from NGC's Variety Plus:

I have a copy of the Browning book that Sandon mentioned above. If you have a question about a particular coin, feel free to send me a PM.

Is this VP-008?

Image from Great Collections website. Price is currently (7/21/23) at $100,000. Link to auction

Another railroad track coin. An Ocean in View nickel with a Lincoln memorial cent pressed into it.

Welcome to the forum. While Ebay and Etsy sellers refer to these as "errors," they are actually the result of over-polishing of the die, which makes them "die states" or "varieties." A real error is usually a one of a kind (or just a few) occurrence, while every coin minted from the time this particular die was polished until it was retired would have this same appearance. They are not rare. A quick check of Ebay shows that these have been selling for around $3 - $5 on average, including shipping. (There are actually two sales of the same coin for $900 and $1200, but I guarantee you that these were some shyster shill-bidding his own coin to try to create a false impression of value. Fortunately, no one fell for the scam.) I predict that when the novelty for these wears off, they will be worth face value or slightly more. It is an interesting find, and one worth keeping, but it is not rare or extremely valuable.

J.D. Gross owned general stores in the towns of Gip and Conway, in Leake county, MS from 1900 to 1934. This token is listed as unique, but I am aware of one other one that exists.

Cool find.

Congrats.

Uncirculated Bank Set ebay link Souvenir set Ebay MInt set link

Apparently, I am out of the loop. What is it?

It isn't just the Jeffersons that are hard to find in circulation. I don't roll hunt, so these coins were pulled from circulation. The 2009P is the only one I haven't found yet.

I remember him from his work with ANACS and PCGS, and from some articles that he wrote in the 80s. I assumed he was much older. Very sad news.