(C) 1997, 1998 by Michael E. Marotta, ANA R-162953
This article first appeared in the May 1997 issue of The Numismatist. The version here is slightly different and is unique to The Full Horn page.]
The Buffalo Nickel may be America's best-designed coin. It certainly wears well. James Fraser's design and the tough copper-nickel alloy combined to produce a stunning and yet practical medium of commerce.
America's coinage had changed. For over 100 years, our Liberty was always a woman. There was no doubt about it. Look at a Bust Half or a Seated Liberty Quarter and you know you are looking at a female. Longacre's Indianhead Cent has a strong face, but is still of a woman, some would say a girl. However, the Barber Liberty is androgynous; it seems to be of a male, yet the lines and planes create an ambiguous image. Not so the work of Fraser. Like the Half Eagle and Quarter Eagle gold pieces of Bela Lyon Pratt, the Buffalo Nickel clearly presents Liberty as a native American man.
Other Liberties, such as the Morgan Dollar or Mercury Dime, have masses of complex curls and swirls. Miss Liberty on the previous five cent nickel (1883 - 1912) had the complicated textures of the silver dollar. At the other extreme, however, Barber's Liberty for the fractional silver coins had very few details. But silver and nickel are different metals. Unlike silver, nickel is hard. (Chemists even use the word "tenacious" to describe nickel.) It wears extremely well. Barber's five cent piece did not take good advantage of the alloy.
By contrast, Fraser's artistic effort has a fundamental vocabulary of detail that cannot easily be worn away. This coin is rugged. The details are broadly and deeply cut. Even in grades below fine, both the native Liberty and the buffalo remain expressive and alive.
The obverse has three planes. The lowest plane contains the small areas of background to the immediate right of the face and below the chin, between the feathers and the neck, and above the top of the head. The front of the face, the nose, eyes, mouth and chin are in the next lowest plane. Above this is the middle and back of the head.
The heavy metal of the hair protects the image of the front of the face. Therefore, no matter how worn a Buffalo Nickel is, the native always has some expression. You can see his eyes and mouth and these are the strongest communicators on the human face.
Look at a "Buffnick" in About Good grade. The rim is worn flat. The legend Liberty is gone. The date has been erased. Even so, the front of this Liberty's face is unmistakable. You can see the feathers and the braid.
The reverse has perhaps six distinct planes. The aminal's mouth is on the second plane from the lowest. The eye is on the fourth and is protected well by the surrounding metal. The shoulder of the bison and the rim of the coin protect the deeper levels.
In lower grades, on the reverse, the bison has no horn and no tail. And yet, the animal's powerful shoulders and shaggy head dominate the design. He is still a bull.
Fraser must have known that nickel alloy would stand up to commercial circulation. On the other hand, apparent fear that, like the first Liberty five cent pieces of 1883, the Buffalo might become a "racketeer nickel" motivated a change in the design. The Type I coin has the bison standing on a mound. This is not a flat, two-dimensional effect, but a realistic mound that juts off the surface. The words "Five Cents" are on the exposed exterior of this butte. Nonetheless the Type II came out in the first year of issue. The revised design cut the mark of value into the depth of the coin, protected within an exergue. Time and experience indicate that this may not have been necessary. Even a coin graded Good still displays much of the legend, FIVE CENTS.
Grousing about new coins is an unwritten right of all collectors. So it is no surprise that the new five cent piece was the subject of criticism. Writing in The Numistmatist for May, 1913, W. H. De Schon, claimed that the legend "E Pluribus Unun" was crowded. "This fault, together with the fact that the letters are very small, will soon reduce the words through wear to mere ridges on the surface." In fact, this is not what happened to coins in circulation. The legend E PLURIBUS UNUM is protected by the rim and by the shoulder of the buffalo.
Interestingly, we grade the coin on two details, both found on the reverse: the horn and the tail of the bison. This fully supports the obvious fact that the coin wears well. The bison's shoulder is the highest surface, the one that wears first. Yet, we do not estimate the amount of wool remaining to judge how circulated the coin is. As a result, coins that are technically in middle to low grades are still visually powerful and compelling.
This is important to the collector because the branch mints in Denver and San Francisco struck only a fraction of the population for most years. Until America edged out the Great Depression, D and S mintmarks appeared on only about 5% to 20% of the five cent coins. As a result, mint state examples from these outlets remain pricy. Assembling a date and mint set in the middle ranges ("collector grade") of Fine to Extremely Fine is much more affordable. Fortunately, a little patience yields a stunning array of obverses and reverses.
As it was passed from hand to hand in circulation, the surface quickly descended into a narrow range of uniform grays. However, the deep cuts in the details trap and hold contaminants. So, over time, as the grade deteriorated in circulation, the depths of the coin, both obverse and reverse, acquired a hard blackness. This offsets the otherwise uniform coloration of the uppermost surfaces.
Over time, an undisturbed coin will tone. However, the copper- nickel alloy is not nearly as reactive as silver or bronze. In this series, toning is most often subtle and also found most often on higher grade coins.
Collectors chasing higher grade examples have a different challenge. For many issues from the branch mints are weakly or unevenly struck. Nickel is hard. We can criticize the efforts of Fraser and the Mint today, only because we examine them under high-powered lenses.
How much of this was in Fraser's plan and how much was luck, we may never know. It is important, however, not to underestimate the artist's insight. Consider Fraser's other famous work, "The End of the Trail." It is so compelling that it is almost over- done. Yet, like the Parthenon, 2500 years of weathering would never wear away the essential geometry of the work.
When the Republic of Ireland was born, the poet William Butler Yeats headed the committee for selecting the new country's coinage. Among his first choices for a designer was James Fraser. Fraser turned down the assignment, pleading other commitments. We know those commitments today as the Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar, which he created in collaboration with his wife, Laura Gardin. That coin has the same stark line work, though it is a very different design.
The Jefferson commemorative five cent piece replaced the Buffalo Nickel in 1938. Yet, after sixty years, the older coin is still the object of great attention from new collectors. We repeat that the animal is not really a "buffalo" but "an American bison" and we tell of Black Diamond. We point out that the "chief" on the obverse is not a chief and is, in fact, a composite of three faces.
The obverse and reverse are really the same as they always were
in the early days of the Republic. The obverse portrayed Liberty.
The reverse often included natural, living elements of the
continent, mosly the eagle, but also corn, cotton, and tobacco,
and, on this one coin, the American bison.