The Bearded Jefferson Nickel

The bearded Jefferson site is www.beardedjefferson.com
In 2004 I started to collect the new “Westward Journey” series nickels. I got many rolls of the Lewis and Clark design. Then I heard about the 2005 nickels would have a bison on it. I found a bank in the town of Forest Virginia that had them (interesting to note these coins were found less than 5 miles from the summer home of Thomas Jefferson at Poplar Forest.) I bought every roll they had.

As I was opening the rolls I notice that some of the coins appeared to have beards on them. I found a large number of these “Bearded Jefferson” coins as I call them. I found about five distinct types of errors from these rolls.

You can read and see the errors by clicking on the nickels above the home of Thomas Jefferson.

When they first came out I saw a few selling on eBay. They were quickly sold or pulled. It was as though they just disappeared. Yes you have heard about the “Speared Bison” That now sells for hundreds of dollars. Yet when you look at the “Bearded Jefferson” coin the error is very noticeable without any magnification. Yet it has not been deemed an error.

I went to a local coin dealer who is a member of the local numismatic society in Lynchburg Virginia. He has been exposed to many error coins. As soon as he saw the “Bearded Jefferson” error his interest was peaked. He bought a few just to see how they would go at some of his coin shows. He found out very quickly they would sell.

Last year I sold him a number of the “Bearded Jefferson” coins. I called him the other day and asked him if he had sold the coins I had sold him. His reply was “I am not selling them I am hording them, they are in my safe in my shop”. He went on to tell me that he would buy the rest of the coins I had.

Why would a man who has been in the coin business for over 40 years want these coins?
Well he told me that there are some who will buy up all of a certain error coin and then when they has done it successfully then and only then will it be declared an error coin.

This is good business to silently buy up an error coin and you will have a monopoly on them. The “Three Legged Buffalo” took years to be noticed. Now a person who has an uncirculated one has a great investment.

You will not find these “Bearded Jefferson” coins on eBay. You probably will not find them anywhere. The reason may not be because they are not a serious error, but they are so rare that only a very few have them. It would be shames to have such an error go unnoticed.

The frustrating part is that I hear of these DDO errors on these coins and you have to have a loop to see them, and even at that you go through coins until you start imagining that the errors are there. These coins sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

The “Bearded Jefferson” is so clear you can show your friends without a microscope.

Thomas Jefferson is the third most remembered president next to George Washington and Abe Lincoln in history. Jeffersonian collectors should be all over this error, but no one knows it exist.

Another thing that makes this coin so unique is the 2005 Bison nickel has a profile picture of Jefferson. Had it not been for the profile shot of Jefferson the beards would not stand out as they do?