In 1883, mint officials changed the design on the Five-Cents denomination. A head of Liberty wearing a coronet replaced the old Shield design. On the reverse, a wreath repalced the stars and a large Roman numeral "V" replaced the old Arabic numeral 5. Another, seemingly inconsequential change created all sorts of problems when the new coins came out -- the motto "E Pluribus Unum" took the place of the word "CENTS." Taking advantage of this omission, enterprising individuals plated the new nickels with gold, then passed them off as new Five Dollar gold pieces. Enough people were fooled that mint officials recognized the problem and fixed it by restoring the word CENTS to its usual place at the bottom of the coin and moved the motto to above the wreath on the reverse. This change occurred in 1883, creating two major varieties for the year.
The so-called "No CENTS" variety is common in all; grades including Mint State. Literally thousands of MS-63, MS-64, and MS-65 examples have been certified by PCGS. Even MS-66 examples are common. In MS-67, the population drops off a cliff, with PCGS reporting only 16 examples (as of September 2011), with none finer.
The 1883 P Liberty nickel was much better than the picture showed. It was nearly spotless and extremely few bag marks. The coin will fit very nicely into my collection. The price made this coin an exceptional value. I do recommend this type of product.
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I have been very pleased with Jessica's service. She is pleasant. She has a wide variety of items for sale. She seems to be honest. In fact more than honest. I have made several purchases from her, and i have always been pleased with the items I purchased from her. The coins have all been above my expectations. Her web site is very well laid out. It is easy to find what you want from her store. It has been a pleasure to deal with her. Thank You for carrying her store.
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Looking at this coin, is like looking over something, you may really want or dream of having. It has beauty, style and grace, like a new Corvette. It is a beautiful coin. It is crisp, clean with little wear. She has held her beauty with elegance for her age. The coin is absolutely gorgeous on both sides. I am not an expert. But, I have always loved old coins, seeing old coins that my Grandparents had. Being thought by my father. The finer points of looking at coins and looking at them help me , grade coins and pick coins for my collection. This coin is a keeper unless, I would find one that was uncirculated. It is just an all round beautiful coin.
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I had to have one of these No cent nickles, because of the "true story" about the man who would try to con people and put this coin on the counter and order a 2 cent cigar and the shop owner would give him change for a fifty-dollar piece, The Government then put the word cents on the coin and always put the coins value on every coin since.
Verified purchase: Yes
It's a great coin that I believe is undervalued given it's mintage number and history. The story is that the United States had to stop minting this coin due to the absence of "cents" on the reverse. The reverse only had the Roman numeral "V". This error allowed "racketeers" to dip the coin in gold and pass it off to unknowing merchants as a 5 dollar coin. As a result, the US Mint only produced 5 million of this variety.