Owner Comments:
Mintage: 37.8 Million
Full Step Availability: 20%
Date/mm Information: Usually seen with nice luster and decent eye appeal.
Coin Description:
Spectacular rainbow toning adorns this lustrous premium gem full step nickel. The untoned face of Jefferson yields to vibrant bands of orange, strawberry pink, blue and emerald green with a sandy color at the peripheries. The center of Monticello is also untoned with intermingled orange-yellow and walnut dominate the reverse with rainbow shades at the edges. A good strike is evidenced by full details on Monticello including five full steps. The surfaces are held back from the top pop grade by just a few significant marks in the focal areas of the coin.
Comments:
This coin replaces an MS67 in my registry set and nets a loss of 103 points. This begs the question. At what point does eye appeal overrule registry points. For me the answer is simple. If you look at the lower graded example and it strikes you as one of the most attractive coins you have ever seen for that date/mm, it becomes easy to include the lower graded coin in your set. The visual impact of this coin is undeniable despite the fact that some grader at NGC voted not to give this coin a star.
In addition, this coin has full steps compared to the original slot holder which did not. The population in MS67 is 95/0. The population in MS66 FS including 6FS is 208/8. I believe that it is important to present a full step example for any date/mm that has a full step availability over 10%. The 1947-D was one of the few in my collection that violated that unwritten rule.
Lastly, this is now the fourth coin from that incredible album collection that was graded by NGC in late 2010 bearing the certification # 2538159-xxx. The coin was purchased from the same E-Bay seller in December 2010 for a small premium over PCGS price guide.