What years were buffalo nickels made?

Answer 1

Buffalo nickels were struck from 1913 to 1938. It was designed by James Earl Fraser. That's his initial F on the front, rather than a mint mark.

Some more info about buffalo nickels...These famous coins are also commonly called Indian head nickels. The first ones made in 1913 showed the buffalo posed on a slightly-raised mound of earth. The extra metal in the design caused problems with the dies used to strike the coins, so in the middle of 1913 the mound was changed to an almost flat plain. These 2 designs are known as Type I and Type II nickels.

Within a few years the dates had started to wear off many of the new coins. The Mint traced the problem to another design error that left the date higher than the surrounding image. In 1925 the coin was redesigned yet again to lower the date, but by that time millions of "dateless" buffalo nickels were in change.

In 1937 the Mint decided to replace the buffalo design with the now-familiar picture of Thomas Jefferson. However, problems with the new dies delayed production for several months so the Denver mint continued to produce buffalo nickels for most of another year resulting in two completely different 1938 nickels.

Also in 1937 an overzealous Mint employee accidentally applied too much pressure when polishing a die and rubbed off the metal that formed one of the buffalo's legs. A small number of "3-legged" coins were struck and released before the error was discovered. These error coins can sell for around $1500 today.