1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof : A Collector’s Guide

By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..

Like the opposite Proof cash issued that 12 months, the 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof is greatest understood within the context of the United States Mint’s annual Proof Set and the nation’s imminent change to copper-nickel clad for many of its minor coinage. Curiosity within the Proof Set had reached document ranges within the Nineteen Sixties, and simply because the Mint couldn’t sustain with the necessity for circulating cash, its skill to fulfill demand for collectible merchandise like Proof Units was examined with orders exceeding three million items.

The 1963 Proof Set contained one Proof instance of every of the 5 denominations struck that 12 months. Two of them, the 1963 Lincoln Cent Proof and the 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof, include base metals, and the opposite three, the 1963 Roosevelt Dime Proof, 1963 Washington Quarter Proof, and 1963 Franklin Half Greenback Proof, have been the second-to-last 90% silver cash struck earlier than the Coinage Act of 1965 eliminated silver from our circulating coinage. This set is also notable because the 1963 is the final Franklin Half Greenback Proof challenge.

Every coin within the 1963 Proof Set was struck and dealt with with care utilizing specifically ready dies and blanks. The standard of the 1963 Jefferson Nickel as issued within the 1963 Proof Set was usually excessive, with a major minority of items displaying adequate cameo frosting to earn Cameo or Deep Cameo/Extremely Cameo designations by the 2 main grading providers.

Cash with Deep Cameo promote for the next premium than cash which can be totally good or have mild Cameo frost.

What Is the 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof Value?

The US Mint offered 3,075,645 1963 Proof Units, and regardless of the units now being over 60 years previous, they continue to be available intact. Sure points are more likely to develop on cash which have been improperly saved over time, and to a sure diploma, the Proof Set’s Pliofilm packaging will break down. For a lot of cash which have been disturbed by environmental publicity, a skinny haze might develop on the coin’s surfaces. This may be eliminated utilizing non-abrasive chemical compounds, however any such remedy needs to be conservative and performed by skilled people.

The copper-nickel composition of the Jefferson Nickel makes firming an inevitability. Sometimes, nickels will exhibit a champagne or cognac coloration over time, however some develop an ice or electrical blue hue. An unusual however not uncommon end result, blue nickels are eye catching and sometimes promote for somewhat bit extra.

Count on to pay $25 to $30 for an intact 1963 Proof Set, $2 for a 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof in its uncooked kind, and between $10 and $15 for an instance graded Proof 68 or Proof 69. The best valued extensively collectible grade of the 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof is Proof 69 Deep Cameo/Extremely Cameo. These at the moment promote for about $250 and the whole variety of qualifying cash obtainable in unsubmitted units shouldn’t be recognized. We anticipate a whole bunch and even 1000’s of latest cash might be added to the census within the years to come back.

Now we have not tracked the only real PCGS PR70DCAM coin to a public public sale and don’t at the moment know its certification quantity.

* * *

Market Information and Noteworthy Specimens

High Inhabitants: PCGS PR70DCAM (1, 10/2024), NGC PF69UCAM (78, 10/2024), and CAC PR67 (1, 10/2024).

• PCGS PR69DCAM #71777330: Stack’s Bowers, April 12, 2023, Lot 91330 – $240.
• PCGS PR69DCAM #70003931: “The George ‘Buddy’ Byers Assortment of Jefferson Nickels,” Stack’s Bowers, August 16, 2021, Lot 2156 – $264.
• PCGS PR69DCAM #13372025: “The MKJ Assortment, Half II,” Heritage Auctions, June 8, 2013 – $763.75; “The George ‘Buddy’ Byers Assortment of Jefferson Nickels,” Stack’s Bowers, August 16, 2021, Lot 2155 – $504.
• PCGS PR69DCAM #13372028: Heritage Auctions, September 28, 2013, Lot 7564 – $822.50.
• PCGS PR69DCAM #13372030: “The GeoHan II PCGS Registry Set,” Heritage Auctions, July 13, 2013, Lot 7550 – $881.25.

* * *

Design

Obverse:

A left-facing bust of President Thomas Jefferson, together with a colonial-era pigtail and strikingly comparable intimately to the profile of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s 1789 bust, takes up many of the obverse. The highest of his head virtually touches the rim, and the barest of truncations is seen on the backside the place Jefferson’s left shoulder meets the sting of the coin. The motto IN GOD WE TRUST arcs clockwise alongside many of the size of the left facet of the coin, ranging from Jefferson’s chest and increasing to his hairline. The phrase LIBERTY and the date 1963 run clockwise alongside the appropriate facet behind Jefferson. A small five-pointed star divides the 2 inscriptions.

Reverse:

The reverse includes a entrance view of Monticello, Jefferson’s mansion close to Charlottesville, Virginia. The polymath Jefferson designed the neoclassical constructing himself, based mostly on architectural ideas from the Italian Renaissance; the identify “Monticello” comes from the Italian for “mound” or “little mountain”. The constructing loses a lot of its dimensionality within the flattened rendering, however the octagonal nature of the dome can nonetheless be interpreted. Higher strikes reveal important element within the steps and portico.

Atop the reverse is the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM (“Out of Many, One”). The identify MONTICELLO–the location of which on the coin was one of many revisions pressured upon designer Felix Schlag by the Mint–is present in a straight line instantly beneath the constructing; the positions and spacing of the opposite inscriptions needed to be adjusted to make room for it. The denomination FIVE CENTS varieties a gently curving line beneath that, and the inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA runs counterclockwise alongside the underside fringe of the coin.

Schlag’s initials didn’t seem on a Jefferson Nickel till 1966.

Edge:

The sting of the 1963 Jefferson Nickel Proof is apparent or easy, as it’s on all Jefferson Nickels.

Designer

Felix Schlag was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1891. After receiving an training on the Munich College of High quality Arts, he moved to america in 1929. Schlag died in 1974. But whereas he did win quite a few artwork contests and commissions all through a lot of the rest of his life, the Jefferson Nickel was his solely coin design.

Coin Specs

* * *