Famous Buffalo Nickel
By Tom LaMarre (Coins Magazine, September 2004)
When it comes to Buffalo nickels, the 1918/17-D ranks second in value to the 1916/16. Coin Prices lists the 1916/16 at $350,000 in Mint State-65. A 1918/17-D in the same grade is valued at $285,000.
One reason for the 1918/17-D nickel’s rarity in mint state is that the variety was not publicized until the 1930s. By then most 1918/17-D nickels were heavily worn. Some had probably lost their date entirely, a common problem with Buffalo nickels.
The discovery 1918/17-D nickel made its first auction appearance at a sale held by Barney Bluestone of Syracuse, N.Y., in October 1931. The auction catalog described it as follows:
“1918 over 17-D Mint five-cent nickel. Bold overdate, the only specimen known to exist at the present time. UNC brilliant. No collection complete without this extreme rarity. This specimen is rarer than the 1913 Liberty Head nickel. Should realize a very high price as this piece is the rarest nickel known.”
Lee F. Hewitt of Chicago was the publisher of Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine at the time. In 1935 he included the 1918/17-D nickel in a “complete” list of U.S. overdated coins. By mistake—probably a typographical error—Hewitt initially listed the nickel as a “1917 over 1916.” A correction appeared in the following month’s issue of the magazine. “A number of Chicago streetcar conductors are collectors in varying degrees,” Hewitt wrote. “Mr. Peterson is one who has spent 40 years looking over coins received as fares, for freaks and those with unusual die breaks. He has accumulated numerous off-center pieces and other freaks. Two of the 1918 over 1917 five-cent nickels are in his possession—both secured from circulation.”
In New York, a transit system worker and his brother-in-law amassed a hoard that included dozens of 1918/17-D nickels. Articles and reference books helped establish the overdated nickel. Charles E. Green’s Mint Record and Type Table of United States Coins, published in 1936, listed the 1918/17-D nickel and noted that only three specimens were known.
In the June 1943 issue of the Numismatic Review, William H. Arthur described the 1918/17-D nickel as “decidedly rare” and claimed that cost-cutting measures were responsible for its creation. Arthur wrote that “during the first World War period, the custom [of overpunching dies] was revived at both the Denver and San Francisco mints, at each of which a single die was reworked to produce the San Francisco quarter dollar and the Denver five-cent nickel, 1918 over 1917.”
Actually, the rarities were created by accident, not to save money. There was a shortage of cents and nickels in 1917, and the Philadelphia Mint was working at a frantic pace. In the fall of 1917, the Mint was busy making 1918-dated dies for the coming year’s coinage. At the same time, it was turning out as many 1917-dated coins as possible.
Each die required several impressions from a hub. Apparently a Buffalo nickel die received an impression from a 1917-dated hub and was sent to the Mint’s annealing room. When it was brought back to the die room, it was taken to the wrong machine and received an impression from a 1918-dated hub.
Inspectors failed to notice the mistake. The error die was shipped to the Denver Mint, which used a single pair of dies to strike the overdated nickels. Most 1918/17-D nickels display a die crack at the left side of the Indian’s jaw.
The 1918/17-D nickel has been listed in every edition of the Handbook of U.S. Coins, first published in 1942. It has also appeared in every edition of the A Guide Book of U.S. Coins since the first edition, with a 1947 cover date, arrived in bookstores in 1946.
Possibly 500 to 1,000 1918/17-D nickels have survived, according to Bowers and Merena’s catalog of the March 1998 Boys Town Collection Sale. But only a handful—perhaps as few as five to 10 examples, maybe a few more—are estimated to exist in mint state.
At Bowers and Merena’s ANA Millennium Sale in August 2000, a 1918/17-D nickel graded Mint State-64 by PCGS realized more than $100,000. Coins Prices lists an MS-60 example at nearly $29,000, and an MS-65 specimen at $285,000. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of subway rides.
