1937 Buffalo Five Cents 1913-1938 MS66

History

James Earle Fraser designed the Buffalo nickel, which the Mint struck from 1913 through 1938. There was no design competition for the coin; Fraser opposed the idea, and he raised the Indian-and-buffalo motif in a letter to the Mint in September 1911, with the design adopted in December 1912. Approval in 1912 did not bring immediate production, because the Hobbs Manufacturing Company, maker of slug-detection mechanisms for nickel-operated machines, objected to the design and was not satisfied with Fraser's alterations; Treasury Secretary Franklin MacVeagh pushed the coin ahead in February 1913. By the mid-1930s the type was regarded as difficult to strike and prone to wear, and Felix Schlag's Jefferson nickel replaced it in 1938, making 1937 the second-to-last year of the series and the last in which Denver produced Buffalo nickels in quantity.

Details

Fraser designed both sides of the coin. The alloy is 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel, with a weight of 5.00 grams, or 77.16 grains, a diameter of 21.2 mm and a plain edge. Denver reported a mintage of 17,826,000 for the date, and the D mint mark sits centered below FIVE CENTS on the reverse. The issue exists as a business strike only, the proof Buffalo nickels of 1936 and 1937 having been a Philadelphia product.

Features

The obverse carries a right-facing Native American profile, for which Iron Tail and Two Moons served as models, and the reverse shows an American bison. The 1937 reverse is the Type 2 layout, in which the original raised mound beneath the bison was cut down into a recessed exergue holding FIVE CENTS. The date is best known for the 3-Legged variety, cataloged as FS-901, which resulted from over-zealous polishing of a worn reverse die; the abrasion almost entirely removed the bison's front foreleg and left the remaining leg with a moth-eaten look. The key diagnostic is a raised stream of metal beneath the bison's belly, and a coin lacking it has been altered rather than struck from the variety die.

Notable facts

• A single pair of dies produced every genuine 3-Legged example, all sharing one reverse.
• Altered coins made by shaving the front leg off an ordinary 1937-D circulate in considerable numbers, and the variety is counterfeited about as often as the 1916-D Mercury dime.
• Additional 3-Legged markers include rust pits and a die crack on the obverse, a pointed beard longer on the bison's facing right side, and a surviving hoof where the leg was removed.
• Clash marks are believed to have prompted the die repair, and Denver reconditioned rather than retired the die because nickels were needed quickly; specialists therefore treat the result as an abraded-die reverse rather than a separate design.
• The variety was never a special issue and reached the public through normal Treasury shipments of new coin to banks.
• PCGS formerly listed the 3-Legged reverse as FS-020.2 before the FS-901 designation.
• A 3-Legged example has brought $84,000 at auction.