Change is here. I have proof!

In change at the video store today I received a 1983‑S nick­el. It caught my atten­tion because the bust of Jef­fer­son looks «frost­ed» against the high­ly-shiny back­ground. Usu­al­ly the fig­ure does­n’t stand out so much, but on this coin, the field was pol­ished almost to a mir­ror-shine. I thought it was a brand-new nick­el, except that the shine was­n’t uni­form (hence the frost­ing). That was a lit­tle con­fus­ing, so I looked clos­er, and sure enough, it has a mint mark: S. For «San Fran­cis­co.» The San Fran­cis­co Mint does­n’t make coins for gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion any more; it only makes proof coins and commemoratives.

It’s been han­dled enough that it’s no longer in «proof» con­di­tion, so it has no val­ue as a col­lec­tor’s item. Tak­ing it out of its set and let­ting fin­gers touch it turned it from a three dol­lar coin to a five cent coin. I don’t think there’s any mar­ket for proofs that show signs of cir­cu­la­tion. Judg­ing by the col­oration, I don’t think it’s a sil­ver proof.

Still, I have a nick­el that was mint­ed in San Fran­cis­co. That’s pret­ty cool in and of itself.

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