The First 2009 Jefferson Nickel

The first 2009 Jefferson Nickel has surfaced! There has been a lot of buzz around 2009 nickels and dimes since they have historically low mintages and have remained completely elusive until recently.

Coin collector and Mint News Blog reader Emmanuel Rodriguez made the lucky find. After hearing about the low mintages for this year's nickels and dimes, he contacted a bank to ask whether they had any 2009 coins. As luck would have it, the bank had 2009 nickels and dimes, but would only sell them in complete $500 or $200 bags of pre-rolled coins. At the time of purchase, he was still unsure about whether the rolls would contain 2009 coins, but examination revealed solid 2009 rolls. The location of the bank was within a US Territory.

Single coins and rolls have been put up for auction on eBay. The 2009-P Roosevelt Dime roll has been bid up to $46 and the 2009-P Jefferson Nickel roll has been bid up to $76. You can view all of the auctions here.

Interestingly, all circulating 2009 coins except for nickels and dimes have been or will be available directly from the US Mint via their bags and rolls sales. The US Mint's 2009 Products include 2009 Lincoln Cents in two roll sets, all of the 2009 DC & US Territories Quarters in bags and rolls, 2009 Kennedy Half Dollar in bags and rolls, and all of the 2009 Presidential Dollars and Native American Dollars in rolls.

Since the 2009 Nickels and Dimes cannot be easily acquired from the US Mint, this should ultimately reduce the number of coins that collectors are able to acquire and hoard. In the long run, this may bolster the prices for nickels and dimes compared to other low mintage 2009 coins.

The latest Production figures for the 2009 nickels and dimes appears below. These numbers come from the US Mint's most recent production figures.

2009-P Roosevelt Dime	96,500,000
2009-D Roosevelt Dime	49,500,000
2009-P Jefferson Nickel	39,840,000
2009-D Jefferson Nickel	39,360,000

As I have mentioned in the post about the 2009 Roosevelt Dime, the US Mint did officially announce the end of production for 2009 nickels and dimes, however, they subsequently announced the possibility of creating a strategic coin reserve, which might entail producing and stockpiling nickels and dimes.