1976 Nickel

by Cathy
(Tuscumbia, Al. USA)

Question: I have a 1976 nickel that is blank on the reverse side. The value or does it have value? It looks like it is half the width it is supposed to be.

My Answer: It is very hard to give an answer about the value of a coin. There are so many factors that go into determining what a coin is worth. Please see this page about determining coin values.

Error coins are even harder to try and determine a value for. Some errors are pretty common and appear frequently so that they are not as valuable and some error coins are one of a kind errors that are worth thousands of dollars.

The error coin you describe sounds like it could be an off-centered coin. Off-centered coins are relatively common, and they occur when the planchet or coin blank is not properly centered within the collar of the coin press during the minting process. Check out How Coins are Made for more details about the minting process.

Here is an example of an off-centered coin -

This image shows a quarter that is off-center about 40 percent. Usually the larger percent off-center the larger the value.

I am not an expert in error coins or their worth, however I would say that any coin with a mint error is going to have an increase in value just because of the rarity if nothing else.

Here are a few suggestions that should be helpful in determining the value of the nickel you describe -

• Try submitting your questions along with some images of your coin to forums that specialize in coins. (You can probably get a pretty good image with a scanner, if you have one.)
  
  There will be some members of the forum who are more familiar with error coins than I am and they will be better qualified to help you.
  
  Coin Talk Forum and Coin Community Forum are a couple of good ones. Someone else may know of a good coin forum. If so, please post a reply below.
  
  Most forums require you to be a registered user before you will be able to post, but registration is free to the two mentioned above.


• You can also try a search on eBay for listings for 'off-center coins' and see what comes up. There may be some nickels with errors similar to yours listed.

If anyone else has any information that would be helpful to Cathy, please post it here.