Certified Cameo Percentage: 14%
Certified Deep Cameo Percentage: 0.2%

During the production of 1903 Liberty nickels at the Mint someone made a glaring mistake. During the striking of some pieces, the dies, rather than being oriented 180 degrees apart (so that the reverse appears upside-down), were aligned in the same direction. Of the total mintage of 1,790 Proof nickels of the year it is doubtful that more than a couple hundred had this slip. This issue, which has been overlooked by most cataloguers, first came to my attention around 1961 when my firm acquired the beautiful collection of coins formed by Ambrose Brown of Penn Yan, New York. His set of Proof Liberty nickels was mounted in a type of holder in which both sides of each coin are visible. Upon looking at the reverses I noticed that one was upside-down in relation to the others. I immediately thought that the coin had been placed in the holder upside-down, but upon examining the obverses of all the pieces I found that they were aligned properly. Ever since that time I have been on the lookout for 1903 Proof Liberty nickels with inverted reverses, and I have seen perhaps a dozen examples.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the June 2021 Showcase Auction, where it realized $5,400.