Three Legs, Three Generations: The Heirloom Hunt for a 1937-D Buffalo Nickel

It was a Saturday morning like any other. Cartoons were on the TV, cereal bowl half full, and the house smelled faintly of my grandfather’s cherry pipe tobacco. My dad and grandpa sat at the kitchen table, heads bent over scattered piles of Buffalo nickels. It was their ritual, something my grandfather had been doing with my dad since he was my age. Two generations, one hobby, and a mountain of coins on the table.

Then, one of those noises you never forget interrupted me during my morning cartoons and cereal. “Whooo hooo!” It was what I could best describe as a miner who had just struck pay dirt. I jumped up, almost spilling my cereal, and ran to the kitchen to see.

“No way!” he shouted. “I just can’t believe it!”

He pulled out the nickel he had been holding, put it under the big magnifier, and showed us his treasure. He found a 1937-D Three-Legs Buffalo Nickel. Even at eight years old, I knew this was a big deal. Something about the missing front leg on the buffalo… Its absence stood out like a glaring omission. It made the coin almost mythical. He popped it into a cardboard 2x2, stapled it shut, and held it in the air like a trophy.

That nickel quickly became the centerpiece of his collection. At dinners or whenever we stopped by, he would bring it out of the safe and pass it around for everyone to awe at. It seemed to bring out the kid in everyone. He would recount the story of finding it, with the same sparkle in his eye every time.

As decades rolled on, the coin changed hands, just as time does. When my grandfather passed, the collection went to my father. By then, I was older, I was in high school, into cars, sports, and the distractions of growing up. Coin collecting faded into the background.

Years later, after culinary school and a life of my own, I came home when my dad fell ill. Those final months together were heavy, but surrounded by his coins, I saw flashes of that old excitement. After he passed, the collection sat untouched for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to go through it.

One day, I finally got up the nerve to look through them and there it was, the 1937-D Buffalo Nickel with three legs. Still in that same old cardboard 2x2, the same staples my grandfather had pressed in decades before. The moment I held it, the memories came flooding back: the smell of pipe smoke, my grandfather’s laughter, my father’s quiet smile.

I nearly sold it twice. Once to a buyer who tried to talk down its grade, and another time to a dealer who dismissed it as fake. Both fell through in the end. Coincidence? Maybe. Looking back, I like to think that coin just wasn’t ready to leave the family.

In the end, I sent it off to PCGS for grading. And when that holder showed up in my hand, I had that same feeling I had had the first time I saw it. I could smell the cherry tobacco from my grandfather's pipe and still hear the laughter and feel the excitement from that day.

This is a nickel that has been through a lot. Decades, generations, laughter, and loss. A nickel that's worth more in memory than money. It’s a reminder that collecting isn’t just about rarity or condition. It’s about the stories coins carry, the fingerprints of the people who passed them down, and the moments that keep a family’s history alive.

I don’t ever plan to sell that 1937-D. For me, it’s not just another nickel, or another error coin. It’s an heirloom. A family story. Someday, I hope to give it to the next generation, the next eight-year-old, and tell the story of that Saturday morning. The yelp of joy, the smell of cherry tobacco, and the thrill of the find. Because sometimes the real treasure isn’t what’s missing on a coin, but what it helps you remember.