DANIEL WEBSTER | Coins Recasting nickel is event of importance

The year just ending has been a landmark for collectors.
For the first time since the Franklin half-dollar was replaced by the Kennedy half in 1964, a circulating coin -- the Jefferson nickel -- will disappear, to reappear a year later in a completely new design.
Continuity is essential to coins struck by responsible governments, so a recasting of a familiar face is an event of both historic and numismatic importance. Such changes are not easy, as can be seen in the tortured legislative path taken by Congress in replacing the Jefferson nickel for two years only.
Subtle design changes take place constantly in coinage, and collectors are attuned to those adjustments in the size of letters or numbers, the addition of a mint mark, a feather or a berry or a leaf or -- in the case of the Jefferson nickel -- the rebuilding of the front step at Monticello or the refinement of Jefferson's jawline.
Collectors all own magnifying instruments and look deeply into the eyes of eagles and statesmen.
In demand
With the end of minting the Jefferson nickel has come heightened demand for uncirculated examples of the end of the run.
The new year will bring tumultuous demand for the first of the Lewis and Clark nickels and the inevitable tiny adjustments and flaws in design that will follow. It's scholarship waiting to happen.
The Missouri quarter's arrival in October enhances the Lewis and Clark and Louisiana Purchase category in collecting. That quarter shows the explorers' flatboat on the Missouri.
The new nickel will also feature references to the exploration and the Louisiana Purchase.
For young collectors, this is the time to get serious. With so many changes in the wind, it will be relatively easy to establish a collection with wide interest. Just think: two nickel designs in 2004 and 2005, then a third in 2006 when Jefferson and Monticello return, but in new images.
A few surprises
There also are bound to be surprises like the 1913 Buffalo nickel caper that came to light this year. A few Liberty nickels, struck surreptitiously in 1913 before the then-new buffalo nickel appeared, had been collected as illegal treasures. The last example -- missing for a generation -- turned up in time to be shown last summer at the Baltimore convention of the American Numismatic Association.
It later sold for $1 million. Fraud sometimes pays in numismatics.
The year just passing also saw million-dollar sales prices on an 1804 dollar and on a 1927 Saint-Gaudens double eagle. Those interested in why a 1927 coin could be so valuable can see one at the Allentown Saint-Gaudens show. That coin summarizes what great design can be.
XDaniel Webster is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.