1983 Jefferson Five Cents 1965 to Date PR69DCAM

History

The five-cent piece has carried Felix Schlag's Jefferson design since 1938, and by the early 1980s the San Francisco Mint's part in the denomination was confined to proof coinage. The 1983-S nickel was never released into circulation; it reached collectors inside the annual proof set. Neighboring dates follow the same pattern, with 1982-S and 1984-S forming part of an unbroken run of San Francisco proof-only nickels through the decade.

Details

Felix Schlag is credited with the design, struck in the standard 75 percent copper, 25 percent nickel alloy on a plain-edge planchet weighing 5.00 grams and measuring 21.20 millimeters in diameter. San Francisco accounted for the entire proof mintage of 3,279,126, a figure that reflects distribution in sets rather than any separate sale of individual nickels. Deep Cameo is a surface category assigned by graders after the fact, so no portion of that total was struck as DCAM.

Features

Deep Cameo, abbreviated DCAM, is the highest of the three proof surface tiers used by PCGS and denotes heavy contrast between frosted devices and mirrored fields. NGC applies the label Ultra Cameo to the same level of contrast, and both designations appear on certified examples of this date, so the two should be treated as equivalent when comparing certified coins across services. Strike quality on the issue is consistently good, which is why the contrast designation rather than the date does most of the work in separating one example from another.

Notable facts

• PCGS rates the issue R-1.0, the lowest rarity level on its scale.
• Survival estimates put roughly 2,803,652 examples in all grades and about 2,663,470 in grade 65 or better.
• Within its PCGS comparison set the date ranks 1 of 31, tied as the most common coin in the group, in both the all-grades and 60-or-better categories.
• The issue carries PCGS number 94218.
• An auction record of $1,840 was set by a PR70 example on August 14, 2007, at a time when far fewer coins had reached that grade.