Wartime pressure at Denver put a leftover 1917 die back to work with an 8 punched over the 7, and the ghost of the old date survived: the 1918/7-D, the great overdate of the series. Like the Three-Legged Buffalo it is a variety, not a mintage row - the 8,362,000 recorded here is the whole 1918-D issue, and the overdate's population is measured in certified survivors, most of them well worn because nobody knew to look for it until years after the coins had circulated.
The ordinary 1918-D is a respectable semi-key in its own right, part of the teens-and-twenties branch-mint stretch where decent strikes are the exception. Check every example's date anyway; the overdate was found in circulation once, and the habit costs nothing.
The overdate rewards magnification and patience, and it punishes wishful thinking - a worn 8 is not a 7 underneath it. Certified attribution settles the argument the loupe starts.
| Issue | Mint | Mintage |
|---|---|---|
| 1918 Buffalo Nickel | Philadelphia | 32,086,314 |
| 1918-S Buffalo Nickel | San Francisco | 4,882,000 |
| 1918-D Buffalo Nickel | Denver | 8,362,000 |
Mintage figures: United States Mint (Annual Report of the Director of the Mint), Royal Canadian Mint records, and — for the 1935 banknote issue — Bank of Canada printage records as published in the Charlton Standard Catalogue of Canadian Government Paper Money, cross-checked across independent published references. Specifications: United States Mint coin specifications.