SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
What is a nickel worth? Five cents? What about hundreds of dollars? This year, the United States Mint and the U.S. Federal Reserve are shortchanging the five-cent piece. Usually minting over 1 billion nickels a year, in 2024, the U.S. has produced fewer than 70 million of the coins. And that has made them, for some Americans, pretty collectible.
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ERIC MILLER: The United States Mint is about to make everyone watching this video, a lot of money. And if you don't know about this, you're about to miss out on one of the biggest opportunities in a very long time.
DETROW: That is a video featuring Eric Miller, the owner of a few coinage channels online and the ambassador to the coin grading and auction shop PCGS. And right now, he is pretty obsessed with the nickel.
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MILLER: The picture I'm showing behind me are new 2024 Nickels. Now, normally, new coins like this would need an error to sell for more money but not these.
DETROW: Miller often takes to social media and videos with images of coins and cash floating behind him as he checks your change. Joining me now to discuss the low mintage of 2024 nickels is Eric Miller. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
MILLER: Thanks for having me.
DETROW: Before we talk nickels, at this moment, when I can go weeks at a time without interacting with coins or cash, like, what is the draw for you? What makes you into this?
MILLER: Well, this is actually the perfect example, is finding things like this. I mean, the last time something like this happened was probably, like, the West Point quarter, which was 2019, 2020. Everybody around the world was looking for that. I have videos on that on the coin channel with millions of views. And it was like three $20 bills. And a normal person wouldn't check for that. After seeing those videos, it made you pretty interested when you can turn a regular coin into a lot more money or currency.
DETROW: Like you said in those clips that we heard, usually when a coin is worth a lot of money, it's because something went wrong, right? It's rare for a particular reason. What's another example of that historically, like some sort of fluke that made a coin really, really hotly valued?
MILLER: This is the biggest one, and a lot of people know about this. In 1943, they made steel pennies. It was the only year they made steel pennies. Accidentally, they made a few coppers from 1943, which - that was never supposed to happen. It was all done accidentally. A 1943 that's made out of copper is two- to three-hundred-thousand dollars, and there's multiple sold auctions to prove it. And it's actually also the exact opposite because for 1943, they - like I said, they only made steel. So when you find a steel penny from 1944, which they also did by accident - the mint - those coins sell for, you know, again, $100,000. Even the worst-conditioned ones were 10 grand, 15 grand. I mean, it would usually be a penny...
DETROW: Yeah.
MILLER: ...Or a wheat penny or a steel penny with a little extra collector value, but that, like, life-changing money because of a mistake.
DETROW: So let's talk about nickels. What is going on with the 2024 nickels? Why are they so valuable? - because there hasn't been a mistake here, right? Like, what's going on?
MILLER: Usually nickels - or at least the past five or six years - they, Philadelphia and Denver - the mintages are usually around 700 million for each mint. So like you said in the beginning, around, like, over a billion minted. I'm not sure why, but for the new 2024 nickels, they minted, like, 30 million. And that's a gigantic difference from 700 million, and they're selling for a lot of money.
DETROW: But I guess it's still 30 million. It's not like there's, like, 200 of these out there. It's like, it's still a lot. It's just way less than before.
MILLER: It's true. Thirty million is still a lot, but, you know, when you compare it to 700 million, which is why people don't usually look through nickels - it's not the first thing they do if they're treasure hunting or something. But that big of a difference - I mean, that's over 90%, and it made them explode on the market. I mean, I actually made a video this morning about this. I went to the bank earlier. I tried - actually tried to get some 2024 nickels because they're going crazy. One sealed roll of nickels, if it's, like, just a regular 2024 roll - they're selling for $100. And if you look at the face value of a nickel roll, it's $2.
DETROW: If somebody who's not a pro like you finds some 2024 nickels over the next week or so, what's the first step? What do you do if you think I want to...
MILLER: Yeah.
DETROW: ...Make some cash on this?
MILLER: If you want to just be quick and be happy with the five bucks per coin, I mean, you can just sell them on eBay. I mean, people are buying them all the time. If you find a full roll, I wouldn't even - I don't even know if I would open it. If both ends has a 2024 uncirculated coin, they both say 2024, I mean, $100 for a roll that has a face value of $2 - really, it's pretty amazing.
DETROW: I think we're going to go end this interview and go look for some nickels.
MILLER: You should. The Mint doesn't have - usually have opportunities like that unless you really are experienced at looking for errors. That's usually what my videos are about.
DETROW: Yeah.
MILLER: And I've had people find errors after I posted videos. And it's not even just coins. There's currency that's valuable, too, like dollars and, you know, every denomination. But just to pick up a year and say, I found one, and it's worth more money - it doesn't usually happen.
DETROW: That's Eric Miller, CEO of the Coin Talk on TikTok and ambassador to the coin grading and auction site PCGS. Eric, thanks so much for talking to us.
MILLER: No problem. Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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