Nickels and dimes
Buffalo nickel value: which dates are scarce?
Type the date and pick the letter under the words FIVE CENTS on the back: the tool gives the number struck at that mint and the metal value.
Buffalo nickel: mintage and metal by year
Metal value of one 1926 coin
7.5¢
| Struck at this mint | 970,000 |
| Mintage band | Very low mintage (under 1 million) |
| Metal | Cupronickel five-cent piece |
| Mint mark on the coin | S |
Pieces made in the calendar year; for most years this is also the date on the coin. At copper $6.61 per lb (last price read).
A Buffalo nickel is worth what its scarcity and its condition make it worth to a collector, and at least its metal, which is the same 5.00 gram mix of 75% copper and 25% nickel as a modern five-cent piece, worth about 7.5¢ at the prices read on October 27, 2026. The design ran from 1913 to 1938, and the Bureau of the Mint tables show how unequal the dates are: Philadelphia struck 79,485,769 in 1937 while San Francisco struck only 970,000 in 1926. The mint mark is a small D or S on the back, below the words FIVE CENTS; no letter means Philadelphia. The lowest figures in the tables are 1926-S (970,000), 1931-S (1,200,000), 1924-S (1,437,000), 1915-S (1,505,000). Because the date sits on a raised part of the design, many found today show a worn date, and a nickel without a readable year cannot be placed in the tables at all.
Lowest-mintage nickels
Lowest mintage 1913 to 1938
1926-S: 970,000
| 1931-S | 1,200,000 |
| 1924-S | 1,437,000 |
| 1915-S | 1,505,000 |
Number struck, from the Bureau of the Mint tables; San Francisco proof-heavy years 1965 to 1980 are left out. A low mintage is a lead, not a price: survival and condition decide what a collector pays.
Mintages, metals and prices read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
The design and the metal
The Buffalo nickel, which the Mint also calls the Indian Head nickel, shows a Native American profile on the front and an American bison on the back. It replaced the Liberty Head design in 1913 and gave way to the Jefferson nickel in 1938, according to the Mint’s history of circulating coins. Its metal never changed: 5.00 grams of 75% copper and 25% nickel, the alloy recorded in the Bureau of the Mint tables of 1981. The silver nickels came only later, during the Second World War.
That alloy sets a modest floor. At the prices read on October 27, 2026, one coin holds about 7.5¢ of metal, a little more than the five cents written on it. Melting it is illegal under the coin regulations of 31 CFR Part 82, so the figure only shows that a Buffalo nickel is never worth less than a modern one.
Number struck at each mint
Three mints struck Buffalo nickels, and their output varied by a factor of more than fifty. The table below reads the Bureau of the Mint figures for every year of the series. Years 1913 and 1938 mix two designs, and a few years have no Denver or San Francisco issue at all, shown by a dash.
| Year | Philadelphia | Denver | San Francisco |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1913 | 60,852,239 | 9,493,000 | 3,314,000 |
| 1914 | 20,665,738 | 3,912,000 | 3,470,000 |
| 1915 | 20,987,270 | 7,569,500 | 1,505,000 |
| 1916 | 63,498,066 | 13,333,000 | 11,860,000 |
| 1917 | 51,424,029 | 9,910,800 | 4,193,000 |
| 1918 | 32,086,314 | 8,362,000 | 4,882,000 |
| 1919 | 60,868,000 | 8,006,000 | 7,521,000 |
| 1920 | 63,093,000 | 9,418,000 | 9,689,000 |
| 1921 | 10,663,000 | – | 1,557,000 |
| 1923 | 35,715,000 | – | 6,142,000 |
| 1924 | 21,620,000 | 5,258,000 | 1,437,000 |
| 1925 | 35,565,100 | 4,450,000 | 6,256,000 |
| 1926 | 44,693,000 | 5,638,000 | 970,000 |
| 1927 | 37,981,000 | 5,730,000 | 3,430,000 |
| 1928 | 23,411,000 | 6,436,000 | 6,936,000 |
| 1929 | 36,446,000 | 8,370,000 | 7,754,000 |
| 1930 | 22,849,000 | – | 5,435,000 |
| 1931 | – | – | 1,200,000 |
| 1934 | 20,213,003 | 7,480,000 | – |
| 1935 | 58,264,000 | 12,092,000 | 10,300,000 |
| 1936 | 119,001,420 | 24,814,000 | 14,930,000 |
| 1937 | 79,485,769 | 17,826,000 | 5,635,000 |
| 1938 | 19,515,365 | 12,396,000 | 4,105,000 |
A coin from a large Philadelphia year is one of tens of millions and turns up in old jars and inherited rolls. San Francisco dates of the 1920s are a different matter. The small tool below ranks the lowest figures for any span of years you choose, so you can see where your date falls.
Lowest-mintage nickels
Lowest mintage 1913 to 1938
1926-S: 970,000
| 1931-S | 1,200,000 |
| 1924-S | 1,437,000 |
| 1915-S | 1,505,000 |
Number struck, from the Bureau of the Mint tables; San Francisco proof-heavy years 1965 to 1980 are left out. A low mintage is a lead, not a price: survival and condition decide what a collector pays.
What decides the value of a scarce date
A low number struck is the first filter, not the answer. Two other facts weigh as much. The first is survival: millions of these coins were worn smooth in circulation over a quarter of a century, and many were lost. The second is the state of the coin. On this design the date and the horn of the bison are high points that wear first, so a nickel with a full date and a full horn is much rarer than the mintage suggests.
This site does not publish prices for collector coins, because no official or freely licensed source gives them, and a made-up figure would do harm. What it can tell you is whether your coin belongs to an issue of millions or of a few hundred thousand, through the tool at the top of the page. For a coin that ranks among the lowest, the grading guide explains how condition is judged and when an expert opinion is worth its fee.
Checking a Buffalo nickel step by step
- Find the year on the front, at the shoulder of the portrait. If it is gone, the coin cannot be dated by mintage.
- Turn it over and look under FIVE CENTS for a D or an S, as the Mint’s page on mint marks describes for coins of this period.
- Enter both in the tool: it returns the number struck at that mint, its band and the metal value.
- If the band reads low or very low, look closely at wear on the date and the horn before deciding what to do with it.
For later five-cent coins, the Jefferson nickel page covers the wartime silver pieces, and the nickel value page covers every date from 1938.