1883 With CENTS

Charles Barber's fix came within weeks of the Racketeer Nickel scheme entering the newspapers. The revised reverse added the word CENTS prominently below the wreath and shifted E PLURIBUS UNUM upward to accommodate the new text. The Roman numeral V remained, but now the denomination was spelled out beside it, eliminating any ambiguity about what the coin was worth. The corrected dies entered production by mid-year, and the With CENTS reverse would remain standard for the next three decades.

Philadelphia delivered 16,026,000 With CENTS nickels in 1883, roughly three times the No CENTS production and the highest mintage since 1868. Despite the higher original figure, the With CENTS is dramatically scarcer in higher grades than the No CENTS because it received none of the contemporary hoarding attention. Collectors who recognized the pre-correction No CENTS as a future curiosity set examples aside in volume, while the corrected With CENTS simply went into circulation and wore down through ordinary commerce. PCGS estimates approximately 30,000 With CENTS survivors across all grades, with around 2,000 in MS60 or better and just 500 at MS65 or better.

The auction record is $34,500 for an MS67 sold by American Numismatic Rarities in March 2006, with the finest known being a single PCGS MS67. Strike weakness on Liberty Head nickels typically appears at the corn ears in the lower-left of the reverse wreath, opposite the high points of Liberty's portrait, and well-struck examples with full corn detail command premiums for specialist collectors building Gem-grade sets.

Type collectors building Liberty Head nickel sets need both the No CENTS and With CENTS 1883 coins to represent the two distinct sub-types of the year. Market convention treats them as separate entries in a complete date-and-mint run, and the With CENTS is typically the harder of the two to acquire in upper grade levels despite the larger original mintage.