Collectors Corner^SM: The Collectibles Marketplace

The 1909 Liberty Nickel is a little scarcer than other coins of the period from its series. Click image to enlarge.

The Liberty Nickel was officially produced for circulation from 1883 through 1912, and it served its purpose well for the three decades it was struck. Designed by Charles E. Barber, the coin was a product of its time, a practical canvas for a portrait of Miss Liberty on the obverse and a straightforward, if ornate, motif on the reverse conveying the coin’s five-cent denomination by way of a large Roman numeral “V” (for “Five”) along with requisite inscriptions of the time.

Few Liberty Nickels could be considered rarities in the absolute sense. However, there are the 1885 and 1886 key dates along with a handful of relatively tough dates, one of which is the 1909 Liberty Nickel. To be sure, the 1909 Liberty Nickel is no rarity – certainly not in the lower grades. That issue was struck to the tune of 11,585,763 pieces and is decidedly common. There are plenty to satisfy the needs of most collectors, at least for those who yearn for circulated or lower-grade uncirculated specimens. However, there is a little more to the story than that.

The 1909 Liberty Nickel saw the lowest mintage realized for the United States five-cent coin since the mid-1890s; furthermore, the Liberty Nickel, being a workhorse coin of the day, certainly wasn’t saved in huge quantities. This means that the 1909 Liberty Nickel is a touch scarcer than other kindred issues from that same era, with prices for the coin in lower-circulated grades often a skosh higher than for others in similar grades.

The price differences between the 1909 Liberty Nickel and others of the same period become more pronounced up the grading spectrum. In MS64 and MS65, the 1909 trades for $325 and $650, respectively; compare that to the $265 and $525 achieved by its date-flanking counterparts, the 1908 and 1910, in those same grades. Only a cumulative few dozen examples of the 1909 Liberty Nickel achieve grades of MS66 or higher, with PCGS having encapsulated only 29 (as of this writing) in MS66, nine in MS66+, and just one in MS67 – the latter of which notched a record price for the coin when it garnered $7,800 in a 2020 Heritage Auctions event.