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[L#3305] 1913 T2 5c PCGS PF67

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:1,250.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD
[L#3305] 1913 T2 5c PCGS PF67
A frosty to satiny pale golden gem with intense cartwheel nickel-blue luster on both sides. Remarkably well-struck and detailed as well, with not even a hint of weakness at the bison's shoulder or the Indian's braid.

It appears that even the artist who designed this piece, James Earle Fraser, preferred the familiar term "buffalo" to the more zoologically correct bison that today's pedants insist upon. The term "buffalo nickel" is today politically incorrect. Those who wish to set the tone of the coin market insist on calling this design an Indian head, American bison five-cent coin - which is a mouthful. Semantics aside, the model for the <I>nickel's</I> reverse is known to have been a bull named Black Diamond. This beast was then a resident of New York City's Central Park Zoo and was already about seventeen years old at the time. Fraser's own correspondence reveals his exasperation in attempting to keep this animal posed in profile as depicted on the coin. Evidently quite uncooperative, Black Diamond insisted on confronting the artist head on and would return to this stance immediately after being corrected.

Black Diamond has occasionally been cited as the model for the $10 United States Note of 1901, the so-called "buffalo bill." This attribution is in error, since the greenback actually portrays Pablo, a star attraction at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C -- understandable, as the $10 note was in use alongside the buffalo nickel through the late 1920s. (For a detailed account, see David W. Lange's <I>The Complete Guide to Buffalo Nickels.</I>)