What is a Buffalo Nickel worth?
Most Buffalo Nickels are worth a few dollars. A handful are worth thousands, and the difference is usually the date, the mint mark and whether you can still read either one.
In the Buck index
Buffalo NickelUnited States · 1913 · Copper-nickel$8.00 to $41.00
Jefferson NickelUnited States · 1938–2003 · Copper-nickel (75% Copper, 25% Nickel)$0.09 to $0.44
The Buffalo Nickel, struck between 1913 and 1938, is the coin people find in a drawer and immediately hope is rare. Usually it is not, and that is fine: a worn one is still worth several times its face value, which is more than can be said for almost anything else in the same jar.
Buck prices circulated Buffalo Nickels in a band from about $8 to $41. That band is wide because the coin's condition does most of the work, and a photograph cannot settle condition the way a loupe can.
Why the date is usually gone
The Buffalo Nickel has a design flaw that collectors have complained about for a century: the date sits on a raised shoulder of the ground line, in the most exposed spot on the coin. Fifty years in a till wears it flat. A dateless Buffalo Nickel is worth roughly what the nickel is worth, so the first thing to do with one is tilt it under a lamp and look for a ghost of the digits.
If nothing is there, the coin still has a story and no premium.
The dates that matter
Four issues carry real money, and three of them are famous enough to have been faked:
| Issue | Why | Typical circulated range |
|---|---|---|
| 1913-S Type 2 | Low mintage, first year | $250 and up |
| 1918/7-D | An overdate: a 7 under the 8 | $1,000 and up |
| 1926-S | The lowest mintage of the series | $100 and up |
| 1937-D three-legged | A die was polished too hard | $500 and up |
Everything else in the run is a common date. Common does not mean worthless, it means the price comes from condition rather than rarity.
Where the mint mark is
Under the words FIVE CENTS on the reverse, below the buffalo. A D is Denver, an S is San Francisco, and no letter at all is Philadelphia. On a worn coin the letter is often the last legible thing on the reverse, which is lucky, because on the scarce issues it is the letter that carries the value.
Type 1 and Type 2
The first coins of 1913 show the buffalo standing on a raised mound. Complaints that the denomination wore off too quickly led the Mint to recess the ground line the same year, which is Type 2, and it is the version struck for the rest of the series. Both types exist for 1913 alone, and the Type 2 from San Francisco is the one worth checking for.
What to do with one
Do not clean it. A cleaned Buffalo Nickel loses most of its premium in the eyes of anyone who might buy it, and the damage cannot be undone. Photograph it flat, under indirect light, both faces, and get a read on the date and mint mark before deciding whether it is worth sending anywhere.
Buck reads the date and the mint mark off the metal and matches them against the record, then prints the band. If the date has worn away it says so instead of guessing, because a Buffalo Nickel without a date is a different coin from one with a date, and pretending otherwise would be the whole point of the exercise thrown away.
