Owner Comments:
Name: The Sleeper
Mintage: 13.9 Million
Full Step Availability: 33%
Date/mm: While Bowers describes the 42-D in gem mint state as one of the rarer examples for the series, my anecdotal experience is that it is relatively easy to find a high quality full step gem.
Coin Description: This coin is the most lustrous standard alloy Jefferson Nickel I have ever seen. I don't know whether to call it booming, blazing, scintillating or just call it all three. All I know is that it is the best. In addition, it displays bright gold toning on the reverse and a mixture of gold, orange, and lavender on the obverse that in combination with the nonpareil luster, drives the eye appeal of this piece into the pinnacle. And beyond that, the coin has premium gem surfaces and an exacting strike as well.
Comments: This coin has a fantastic back story. When I first started my album collection, I filled most of the pre-war dates with NGC graded MS66 examples, and this coin was no exception. It was housed in an old fatty MS66 slab with the certification number of 700840-001 and purchased in a Teletrade auction on 1/9/2011 for $42. This coin with its crazy luster stood out like a sore thumb from the other coins in the album which were all premium gem as well, but my registry example was a rather lifeless NGC MS67 6FS. Still, there is absolutely no chance that a non full step coin was going to knock off an MS67 6FS, so it stayed in my album collection for a decade. In early 2021, I was searching for coins to round out my first PCGS submission in years when I saw this coin in my album. I plucked it out, photographed it, and to my surprise, saw five full steps, but with a couple of small shallow marks. At this point, I had no idea if NGC would grade the coin 5FS since it was first graded prior to the inception of the 5FS designation when a Jefferson needed 6 full steps to get a FS designation from NGC. And since PCGS is much more lenient with their application of the FS designation and they tend not to punish small shallow marks, I submitted it to PCGS on 1/15/2021. And while this next statement might seem unbelievable, I full expected PCGS to grade this coin MS67FS+. It isn't often that you are disappointed by an MS67FS grade, but here we are. Since this monster just sat in my album collection for a decade, I have dubbed it the sleeper. For anyone interested in what happened to my MS67 6FS, I sold it to another NGC Jefferson collector and it currently resides in the LEM E Collection.