[The following excerpt is published courtesy of DLRC Press and its author, David W. Lange. This information was originally published in 2006 in The Complete Guide to Buffalo Nickels.]

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MINTAGE: 5,730,000 (Ranking 20/64)

POPULAR VARIETIES: The most interesting variety for this date has a triple-punched mintmark (FS-1927D-501).

Aggressive polishing of the reverse die produced the 3-1/2 leg variety (FS-1927D-901).

A two-feathers variety is also reported (FS-1927D-401).

Minor die doubling is known for the reverse.

Cuds include one giving the bison a small cap and another affecting OF AMERICA.

RARITY: This is a date that seems underrated in grades XF and AU. I said so in the 1992 edition of this book, and I still believe it to be true, despite some impressive gains since 2000. In gem mint state the same may be said, with well struck examples being particularly elusive.

COMMENTS:

Fully struck coins are very rare, though examples having a reasonably good strike are more available than for 1925-D and 1926-D.

1927-D nickels typically have just average to good luster. Heavily worn dies produced a rich, frosty quality, and this may appeal to some collectors.

Though World War I had brought about 50% inflation in the value of the dollar, the purchasing power of the humble nickel remained significant at this time, as suggested by the following account from 1927:

In the first place, the purchasing range of the nickel is so wide that it includes every one in America. There is no class excluded, even the so-called “panhandlers,” for that is the denomination customarily mentioned in their sidewalk solicitations.

For five cents one can buy everything from a cup of coffee to a stone-set ring–from a sandwich to a reprint of Omar Khayyam. A check-up of articles sold for a nickel in one five-and-ten-cent store revealed some 800 different items, including radio parts, toilet goods, soap, rubber sundries, hardware, kitchen utensils, stationery, phonograph supplies and candy.

One cannot travel many miles in the United States without in some way utilizing the five-cent piece. Several great industries have been built around it and use it as the main purchasing unit–the automat cafeterias and armchair lunch rooms, trolley transportation systems, chewing gum and chocolate packet makers, and even some of the greatest of our periodicals. The public telephone probably owes its success as a national institution to the fact that it functions on the nickel-in-the-slot basis. The tremendous sale of newspapers upon the city streets calls for an increasingly large amount of small change, in which the nickel plays a leading part.