The Liberty Nickel Key Dates

Liberty Nickels are a vintage series that many deem approachable, given the relatively few super-rare dates… That is, avoiding the white elephant known as the 1913 Proof Liberty Nickel, a multimillion rarity with five known specimens; the coin is not known to have been an official United States Mint issue, and thus it is generally never pursued by most collectors building Liberty Nickel sets.

That much having been said, attention turns to the official issues, and most business strikes were churned out of the mint at numbers exceeding 10 million – a threshold many would consider prolific for a series that formally ran from 1883 through 1912. Some dates rise to the top as scarcities, including the 1885, 1886, and 1912-S issues.

The 1885 Liberty Nickel has the second-lowest mintage behind the 1912-S but is perhaps the toughest date for collectors to locate in the absolute sense. It simply wasn’t saved in the vast numbers that other dates were. In some grades it is not necessarily the rarest, though overall many collectors would say the 1885 is the stopper when it comes to completing a set. With a mintage of 1,473,300, the 1885 Nickel today yields about 5,000 survivors across all grades, per PCGS estimates. The date begins around $375 for a G4 example, with prices more than doubling to $800 in F12. In XF40, the coin fetches $1,500, which is a far cry from $6,500 for an example in MS64 – the most populous Mint State grade for this coin in terms of the number graded by PCGS.

Some consider the 1886 Liberty Nickel as a key date – and in terms of its importance in the series in terms of value and difficulty it certainly is a toughie. Yet, with its production figure of 3,326,000, it boasts only the third-lowest mintage of all business strikes – behind the 1885 and 1912-S issues – and is oftentimes categorized as more of a semi-key than a key. Those seeking a G4 specimen can land one for about $175, while an F12 can be had for $375. Moving up the grading ladder, an XF40 costs about $700, with $3,000 buying a specimen in MS64, which is a typical Mint State grade for this date.

Then comes the 1912-S Liberty Nickel, the lowest-mintage business strike in the series. Bearing a paltry mintage of 238,000, the coin’s production figure is lower than those for the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent (with a mintage of 484,000) and 1916 Mercury Dime (264,000 struck). However, prices for the 1912-S Liberty Nickel are certainly nowhere near what its contemporary rarities fetch, at least in the most-widely traded grades. A 1912-S nickel can be bought for $140 in G4, less than a quarter of the prices achieved these days by the 1909-S Lincoln Cent or 1916-d Mercury Dime at the comparative grade. At $250 in F12, this scarce date remains relatively affordable for those who are dedicated to the series, though it becomes a pocket-buster for many in XF40 and MS64, where the coin commands $1,400 and $3,000, respectively.