[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: 23,411,000 (Ranking 48/64)

POPULAR VARIETIES: A 2-1/2-leg variety was reported in the October 1943 issue of Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, but this was doubtless one of the many crude counterfeits circulating during the 1930s and ‘40s.

RARITY: 1928(P) nickels are common in all grades, though they appear to be slightly scarcer than 1927(P) and 1929(P). Original rolls may exist, but these will be broken up and sent to the grading services whenever old collections resurface.

COMMENTS:

The strike for this issue is usually good, but not quite as sharp as for other P-Mints of the late 1920s. In addition, the placement of the date may give the illusion that the 8 is not distinctly separated from the hair ribbon.

1928(P) typically possess very bright and pleasing luster. Frosty examples are the norm, and these don’t seem to have been coined from heavily worn dies to the extent that other issues were. This quality is partially offset, however, by the slight weakness of strike described above.

The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint for Fiscal Year 1928 reveals that a chromium plating plant was installed at the Philadelphia Mint “for greatly improving the wearing qualities of dies, coin collars, machinery parts, and models.” This may explain, at least in part, why the coins from this point onward are less often seen with evidence of having been struck from extremely worn dies.

Further noted by the director was that “Mechanical handling has also been applied to nickel coinage metal, which is purchased in the form of shot.” Not all of the nickel arrived in shot form, however, as another section of the report indicated that “there were purchased at the mint at Philadelphia 13,898,011.45 troy ounces of minor-coinage metals at a cost of $228,439.03, which includes 4,451,657.29 troy ounces in nickel blanks prepared for stamping, costing $138,963.45.”