A fine day for a roll-searcher

[Finn235]

I made my usual trip to the bank today, and got 10 rolls of nickels to sort through. As usual, I found a number of Westward Journey nickels, and a couple very well worn nickels from the early 60's and late 50's, but then this beauty fell out...

 

 

 

This coin absolutely baffles me. At 68 years old, it still has almost all of its original luster. The obverse has virtually no signs of wear aside from a handful of small nicks in Jefferson's portrait, and the reverse has only the lightest overall wear, with all fine details still visible. All six steps on Monticello are at least somewhat visible, although the bottom two are badly damaged in spots. I would guess that this coin hasn't seen more than a month of actual circulation, at the very most. I guess I will never figure out how this coin managed to find its way back into circulation.

 

Apologies for the poor quality pictures, but does anybody have an idea of how this coin would grade? I'm not experienced at grading coins, but I'd place it at AU+

[thedeadpoint]

Wow! What a find! As for grade? AU 58 is a conservative guess by me.

[Mark Stilson]

Nice roll find. Luster still showing.

[Art]

Beautiful nickel. Maybe someone is spending their collection, or some elses'.

[Finn235]

I think Art might be on to something with this one. I was taking a look through the nickels I set aside for another look, and I caught something I had missed before... a 1989-S proof!!!! It's lost almost all of its mirror-like surface and has a number of dings and smudges (for a proof coin, at least), but San Francisco didn't make any business strikes in 1989. Needless to say, I think I will be giving the rest of the nickels a more thorough going-over tomorrow and will be hitting the bank soon in hopes of catching any more rolls this person might have left.