A while back, on a different blog which I rarely post on, I featured my 1931-S Buffalo Nickel with a rare date "error" on it. It took years to figure out why the date was 11131-S rather than 1931-S.
I acquired the coin in the early 1990's from an elderly couple at my church who used to pass out Atomic FireBalls to the children. They knew that I was into coins so they gave me this coin. I took it to a couple different coin dealers in town, both of which have since retired from the coin trade. The first dealer wasn't sure how the "error" occurred and the other dealer claimed that someone had drilled through the side of the coin and raised the metal from the inside. I knew this was not the case on this coin because there was no evidence of any plug on the edge of the coin and it wasn't evident that the coin was tampered in such a way.
A few years later, there are two different coin shops in town. I took it to one and the dealer weighed the coin and said that the weight was within the proper range for this coin and that it was an original coin and not a counterfeit. He suggested sending it to a numismatic publication to have them write an article on it and perhaps they would investigate it further as they write the article. I did no such thing. The last thing one should do is randomly send coins through the mail to solicit an article from a random stranger. So my inquiries continued.
About 3 years ago or so I took the coin to the other main coin dealer in town, who also is an expert on Morgan Dollar die varieties and consults with PCGS on Morgans. He was able to explain exactly how the "error" occurred on the coin. It turns out that the "error" was not from the mint, nor was the coin deliberately tampered with to produce such an oddity. Shown below is a close up of the date on the obverse.
Focusing on the two 1's just left of the 3 in the date and one can see that they were formed from the 9 that was originally there when the coin was struck. Note how the tops and bottoms of the 1's are curved. Shown below is the date from a 1938 Buffalo to compare the shape of the 9 on these coins with the 1's from the "error".
Now it is apparent that early in the coin's history something banged up on the surface of the coin causing the 9 to split in the middle. It separated the left portion of the top and the left portion of the bottom in such a way causing them to fuse together, to form a 1. The part on the right also became 1.
Under magnification one can see the evidence of this as being the true reason as to what changed the date on the coin. Looking at the surface of the coin between the two 1's that were formed from the 9 one can see that the metal was ripped off and it looks different from the rest of the surface. This is the area just to the left of the red brackets labeled 1, 2, and 3. The area denoted by bracket 4 shows where the top left and bottom right of the 9 fused together.
Since the time the damage occurred, the coin continued to be circulated for a while until it was finally pulled out of circulation. The wear on the coin from use helped conceal the fact that the 9 was damaged. The couple that gave me the coin said that they found it in the parking lot of a grocery store and thought a car had run over it due to additional scuffs on the coin. I believe the scuffs, seen on the Indian's face on the coin's obverse, occurred at a later date from the ding that damaged the 9. This is evident in the fact that the surface of the date is worn out more than the scuffs on the face. I also don't believe that the coin was run over by a car in the parking lot as the damaged areas on the coin would have appeared fresh when compared to the rest of the surface.
While 1931-S Buffalo's in similar condition are worth roughly $15 each, I believe that this coin can fetch more due to the novelty factor of the date. I would love to have it sent off to PCGS to get certified but I doubt they would give it a true grade. I believe that due to the date "error" and the harsh scuffs on the surface that it would grade PCGS-Genuine.
All in all, this Buffalo nickel makes an interesting conversation piece even after learning how the date changed.
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