1929 Buffalo Five Cents 1913-1938 F15

History

The Liberty Head nickel, in service since 1883 with Charles E. Barber's Liberty obverse and Roman numeral V reverse, was widely regarded as outdated by 1912, and sentiment favored a new design. James Earle Fraser, who had studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens, wrote to Mint Director George E. Roberts on June 13, 1911 offering sketches for a Lincoln five-cent piece, and sent electrotype models to the Treasury by July of that year. Officials set the Lincoln concept aside once Fraser proposed a Native American portrait paired with an American bison. The Treasury weighed a public design competition, but Fraser argued that compromise would dilute the artistic result, and he was allowed to proceed alone. Production began in February 1913, and the San Francisco Mint struck the 1929-S sixteen years into the series.

Details

Fraser designed both sides, so no separate reverse artist is credited. The coin was struck in 75% copper and 25% nickel, weighs 5.00 grams, measures 21.20 millimeters in diameter, and has a plain edge. San Francisco produced 7,754,000 pieces in 1929, a figure on which the standard references agree.

Features

The obverse carries the head of an Indian facing right, with LIBERTY in small letters at the upper right edge and the date at the lower left. On the reverse a bison stands on a raised mound, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and E PLURIBUS UNUM above and FIVE CENTS in the recess below, the Type 2 configuration used from 1913 onward. IN GOD WE TRUST does not appear, the motto not being required on the five-cent piece at the time. The recognized variety for the date is the 1929-S Two Feathers, FS-401, in which lapping of the die to remove clash marks erased the third, innermost feather of the headdress; a retained cud die break is also catalogued for the issue.

Notable facts

• A small number of Buffalo nickels were handed out by President William Howard Taft at a groundbreaking ceremony before general release.
• Manufacturers of coin-operated machines objected to the new five-cent piece in 1913, claiming it would not work in their devices.
• PCGS recognizes 27 distinct Two Feathers varieties across the Buffalo nickel series, all of them from production between 1913 and 1930.
• An MS67+ 1929-S brought $36,000 at auction on October 10, 2021, and MS67+ remains the finest grade certified at both PCGS and NGC.
• An MS66 example of the 1929-S Two Feathers variety realized $11,750 on December 12, 2019.
• The Jefferson nickel replaced Fraser's design in 1938.