For the Jefferson Nickel Specialists

[Newmismatist]

Here’s an area that Jefferson Nickel Specialists on our forum can help out their non-specialist fellow members.

 

How do you define “Full Steps”?

Which Dates are difficult to acquire with Full Steps?

How much more are the Full Steps dates worth than their non-full steps counterparts?

 

 

[Leothelion]

How do you define “Full Steps”?

 

From 12+ years of FS Jefferson experience, this knowledge developes with experience.

 

Which Dates are difficult to acquire with Full Steps?

 

Same as the above answer, a collector needs to live and learn the in's and out's to what dates are difficult to locate. Unless he's got money to burn, any coin can be bought and sold for outrageous amounts of money but that's just a stupid way to put a FS collection together.

 

How much more are the Full Steps dates worth than their non-full steps counterparts?

 

It depends on how long you have to live. The older you get the more desperate you become to complete the set. But then again, I wouldn't pay much more then $35 for most high grade FS dates after 1954. For many of the scarce dates after 1954, they will eventually surface as the babyboomers begin to die out in the next 20 years and all their assets are up for grabs.

 

Leo

[cladking]

 

It depends on how long you have to live. The older you get the more desperate you become to complete the set. But then again, I wouldn't pay much more then $35 for most high grade FS dates after 1954. For many of the scarce dates after 1954, they will eventually surface as the babyboomers begin to die out in the next 20 years and all their assets are up for grabs.

 

Some of the early S mint coins from the '50's are pretty tough in full steps. Most of the '60's issues are tough. The '68-D is probably the toughest of all, and most of these from this era up to '71 are elusive. Finding these later issues with good strikes and clean surfaces is a virtual impossibility in some cases and a few more decades elapsing is certainly not going to make them any easier. There were never millions of full step collectors, indeed there were never even thousands. One will have to act quickly to find these collections as they become available in time and likely they'll find that most of the best specimens will have already been graded. There was no internet to search for these coins in the 70's and '80's and there were no grading companies to narrow the search until most of the rarities had seen a few years of circulation.

 

Those holding off on updating their collections are not going to find a glut of great coins at firesale prices in the future. The only way these coins can possibly be cheap is if demand is low. Many of these appear not to exist in rolls whatsoever and are quite scarce in the few mint sets remaining. The '70-S for instance appears as a full step gem in about one of every 1,200 mint sets. The passage of time will not improve this ratio, only make it that much more difficult to find 1,200 1970 mint sets.

[Hoot]

How do you define “Full Steps”?

 

There are six steps on the reverse of Monticello. This includes the "porch step" which is the top-most step. These are flanked by the buttresses beside the steps, left and right. The six steps are formed by five incuse lines that follow from left to right between the buttresses (see attached picture). For a coin to be full steps, there must be at least 5 full steps and these must be the top 5 steps. The bottom two steps (steps 5 and 6) can be joined fully or partially. There may not be any tags of metal joining the other steps or bag marks/hits that breach two or more steps such that the incuse lines are joined. Why only 5 or more steps? A consensus of history and the collection of the nickel.

 

Which Dates are difficult to acquire with Full Steps?

 

1938-S, 1939-D, 1939-S (reverse of 1940), 1949, 1952, 1953, 1953-S, 1954-S, 1955-D, 1956-D, 1960, 1960-D, 1961-D, 1963-D, 1964-D, 1965 (business strike), 1966 (business strike), 1967 (business strike), 1968-D & S, 1969-D &S, 1970-D (especially) and S. Coins post-1971 are tough to find in gem and ultra-grades. The Mint has seen to it to beat the [!@#%^&^] out of most moderns, so they are tougher to find in great shape than one would ever expect.

 

How much more are the Full Steps dates worth than their non-full steps counterparts?

 

This is a really tough question to answer generally. But, in my personal experience, anywhere from 5 times to 25 times a non-full step counterpart, depending on relative rarity. There's a lot of wiggle in this. For instance, I bought a 1956-D MS67 nickel with 4-3-2-5 steps (steps counted at each quarter under each pillar of the porch of Monticello). The rarity of the coin? So far, populations of 12 with NGC and 1 with PCGS. I paid 50 bucks, but this coin with full steps does not exist at the MS67 grade level with either NGC or PCGS. (Perhaps Leo knows of some with ANACS). However, an MS66FS example of this date/mint sold this summer for over 5 grand. So, it's my opinion that the FS designation can have somewhat questionable value in collecting the series, especially monetarily.

 

Here are a couple of links to articles in Coin World on Jefferson nickels:

 

Part one

Part two

 

Hoot

[cladking]

Coins post-1971 are tough to find in gem and ultra-grades. The Mint has seen to it to beat the [!@#%^&^] out of most moderns, so they are tougher to find in great shape than one would ever expect.

 

 

Most all regular issue moderns are heavily marked up before leaving the mint but with most of these there will be a lot of correlation between a coin being well struck and clean. This breaks down a lot for the nickels; there is almost no correlation. If you find a few full step coins they'll likely be no cleaner than if they were chosen at random. Nickels also tend to have more marking than most denominations so the result is that full step gems are very tough for most modern issues.

 

A few of these coins are relatively easy to find in mint sets and I'm told that some of them appear in rolls. So these could be quite common if lots of people set them aside in quantity. Keep in mind though that I've looked at many hundreds of rolls and more than a few bags and have never seen anything that got very close to being a full step gem. In fact I've found only sixty or seventy "keepers" from all these rolls and bags over the last few decades. Nice nickels are so hard to find in rolls that many people didn't bother to look at them at all or to save any for the future. While modern nickel rolls are hardly scarce like many of the clad rolls, don't expect to open any and find FS gems, or for that matter any gems or any full step coins (except for post-'70 issues).

 

 

[Newmismatist]

Hoot

 

Thanks for the grat post - My Jeffs end in 1963, the year I started college - my winter project is to get an album and get thoses dates from 1964 to date - This is actually an area that I have very little knowledge of because when I stopped collecting Jeffs, FSs had not yet been "discovered". Your information is very helpful to anyone who is interested in this collectable series.

 

CLadKings information nicely compliments what you've written

 

Thanks to both of you

 

[Leothelion]

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Your welcomed!Leo

[Leothelion]

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EDS (early die state) is the only practical way to collect the modern dated FS Jefferson nickels. Anything else with less then a full strike are called "misnomers."Don't pay alot for those bad mufflers! This 55-D set me back 75 cents.Leo

[Leothelion]

The rarity of the coin? So far, populations of 12 with NGC and 1 with PCGS. I paid 50 bucks, but this coin with full steps does not exist at the MS67 grade level with either NGC or PCGS. (Perhaps Leo knows of some with ANACS). However, an MS66FS example of this date/mint sold this summer for over 5 grand.

 

Hoot,

I'm looking into my crystal ball and I see a MS67FS 56-D surfacing in the very near future.

 

Leo

 

And in 6 steps!

[Hoot]

Go for it Leo. I've heard from you how there will be many such mysteries appearing, yet no apperation! Let's see the real stuff!

 

Hoot

[Leothelion]

 

It depends on how long you have to live. The older you get the more desperate you become to complete the set. But then again, I wouldn't pay much more then $35 for most high grade FS dates after 1954. For many of the scarce dates after 1954, they will eventually surface as the babyboomers begin to die out in the next 20 years and all their assets are up for grabs.

 

Some of the early S mint coins from the '50's are pretty tough in full steps. Most of the '60's issues are tough. The '68-D is probably the toughest of all, and most of these from this era up to '71 are elusive. Finding these later issues with good strikes and clean surfaces is a virtual impossibility in some cases and a few more decades elapsing is certainly not going to make them any easier. There were never millions of full step collectors, indeed there were never even thousands. One will have to act quickly to find these collections as they become available in time and likely they'll find that most of the best specimens will have already been graded. There was no internet to search for these coins in the 70's and '80's and there were no grading companies to narrow the search until most of the rarities had seen a few years of circulation.

 

Those holding off on updating their collections are not going to find a glut of great coins at firesale prices in the future. The only way these coins can possibly be cheap is if demand is low. Many of these appear not to exist in rolls whatsoever and are quite scarce in the few mint sets remaining. The '70-S for instance appears as a full step gem in about one of every 1,200 mint sets. The passage of time will not improve this ratio, only make it that much more difficult to find 1,200 1970 mint sets.

 

 

Leo

[spy88]

Gee! My very first post here! Transfer from "the other place"!

 

I was in the same predicament as you some time ago, but found a site that explains it ALL. varietynickels.com is a site/page in the building stage but has the answers to all of the questions anyone who collects Jeffersons NEEDS to know in order to be familiar with purchases and/or values.

 

Remember tho, I say a site in the building stage. There are still links that aren't "hot" yet. One of the neater things they have is a collaboration between Darrell Crane (Pres of The Jefferson Full Step Club), Ron Landis (master die engraver for The Gallery Mint) and S S (grading service). They have made 1,938 matte Unc and 1,938 silver proof Jeff copies of Felix Schlag's 1938 Award Winning Design. Really beautiful coins!

Hope this helps any and all Jeff collectors as much as it has for me!

 

http://www.msnusers.com/1938-Schlag

[Leothelion]

Hmmm, We Can't Find that Page...

 

Leo

[spy88]

Fixed it, Leo!