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Replies: 27 / Views: 6,724 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
952 Posts |
John Paul: There are absolutely atypical boxes around....I had a box 3 weeks ago that had 2 rolls of oldies - 1 had a 56-p and the rest were 40's with 1 39-p in it, and another roll was nothing but 50's coins, all common.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2541 Posts |
Nickelsearcher:
Thank you for this interesting update. Not surprisingly, all the nickels I need are on your 'top 10 most difficult to find'. I was considering doing something similar to this but you have done a far more thorough job than I could!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6326 Posts |
I've always said Obsessive Compulsive Disorders are not a bad thing, as long as it doesn't interfere with basic life functions.    
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Valued Member
United States
462 Posts |
I love this analysis. I was thinking something similar to this could be done to approximate how much silver coinage avoided the great melt. Harder to do of course since "all" of the silver is hoarded.
It does, however, sadden me that I have but one of your top ten. I gotta get another box of nickels!
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Valued Member
United States
476 Posts |
Well I've blown the odds out of the water! Out of my last 10 boxes...since early December. That I just plugged into a spreadsheet yesterday, I've found 3 count-em, 3 43-D's. Crazy stuff I say. I found two in back-to-back boxes on Saturday alone. Suppose that means it'll be about 700,000 coins before I see my next one? 
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2273 Posts |
I've been thinking a lot about these numbers and trying to reconcile them with what I saw when I was doing it back around 1974- '77. At that time it seemed a lot of the pre-1950 nickels didn't circulate well. It seemed they were being hoarded a lot. Observations since then have implied this even more strongly.
One of the things the older coins had in common was that they tended to be higher grade coins which suggested that they weren't really circulating. But your data shows pretty strongly that they are. Perhaps what's happening is that people are getting smarter and dishoarding the lower grade stuff while setting aside nicer coins.
I'll keep trying to figure this out butr was hoping you could help me a little with providing a little information on grades. Two questions;
What is the approximate average grade of these categories when you toss out the outliers and are there very many outliers?
Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
When you take a tour of the Denver Mint, one of the machines displayed was specifically designed to bulk-sort Silver War Nickels from regular Nickels. Yes, it was made to pull 35% Silver Nickels from circulation 'after the war'. Those Nickels had nearly face value in Silver content, even then! By the way, the odds of finding older coins in circulation increased commensurate with the "Great Coin Jar Dump of 2008-2009"... (although this seems to have leveled off since last summer....)
Edited by DNA 01/18/2010 9:18 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2541 Posts |
DNA - that's interesting to hear about the " War Nickel scammer". It sounds like an evil arch-nemesis for us coin roll hunters! Do you know if they melted down the nickels they pulled?
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Valued Member
United States
99 Posts |
Nickelsearcher, first, thanks for your post really enjoyed reading through your analysis. For the most part it looks my find rates are trending nicely to your top ten. I've copied your numbers below then compared them to my inventory through 62,720 searched nickels. As would be expected I'm a little above and below your averages but they seem to hold up. The two 38-s would appear to be the outlier but that can probably be explained by that fact that I live in the SF Bay area so they may be a little more common here.
43-D @ 188,308 - 0 44-S @ 133,385 - 0 44-D @ 89,199 - 1 42-S @ 87,572 - 1 39-D @ 85,494 - 0 45-D @ 71,449 - 0 38-S @ 72,982 - 2 50-D @ 70,406 - 0 38-D @ 55,412 - 0 45-S @ 48,915 - 1
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Moderator
  United States
15507 Posts |
A few thoughts from me as it appears this thread has run it's natural course ..... First of all ..... I do not claim with certainty that the Top-10 stated above is in the exact proper order ...... I still have a problem with the hoarding of the 50-D that I have not solved ...... However ..... I am quite confident in the overall Top-10 listing ..... the original mintage figures are deceiving as they do not account for obsolescence ..... So I remain confident that these are indeed (by my data) the most difficult Jefferson's to find in circulation today. Kudos to those who have found most of them ..... and I expect most dedicated nickel roll searchers could look at their findings and agree that my 'list' of Top-10 are more reflective of today's reality than original mintage figures ........ It's all due to Circulation Obsolescence.  A few replies if I may .... Quote: For the most part it looks my find rates are trending nicely to your top ten. I've copied your numbers below then compared them to my inventory through 62,720 searched nickels. I should have posted that data as well mrak ..... thanks for the suggestion! I am now at 142,800 nickels searched ..... and my humble tally versus the Top-10 is as follows ... 43-D @ 188,308 - 0 44-S @ 133,385 - 1 44-D @ 89,199 - 0 42-S @ 87,572 - 1 39-D @ 85,494 - 1 45-D @ 71,449 - 1 38-S @ 72,982 - 0 50-D @ 70,406 - 1 38-D @ 55,412 - 2 45-S @ 48,915 - 4 Quote: I've always said Obsessive Compulsive Disorders are not a bad thing, as long as it doesn't interfere with basic life functions.
No worries eaglefoot ........ I am good so far ... but thanks for the reminder! Quote: I've been thinking a lot about these numbers and trying to reconcile them with what I saw when I was doing it back around 1974- '77. At that time it seemed a lot of the pre-1950 nickels didn't circulate well. It seemed they were being hoarded a lot. Observations since then have implied this even more strongly. These coins still do not circulate well cladking ..... perhaps we are not speaking the same language ..... but I used my database tonight to address this question for you ..... What percentage of the Pre-1950 Jefferson's have been lost in cirulation in today?The answer is 87.15% have been 'lost' ..... I can share the math if you wish ...... but that seems to me to be sufficient evidence that the pre-1950 Jefferson are scarce in relative terms to find today. Quote: Well I've blown the odds out of the water! Indeed you have ...... send a few my way if you don't mind! Puns aside ..... it's the nature of statistics to have a few outliers ...... all these 'predicted average' numbers are long term averages ..... so you Mr. DylansDad are beating the odds ..... for now.  Well .... it's time to sign off so I can go to work tomorrow ..... I hope to someday write a published article in a national magazine on this concept of Obsolescence ....... so please do not beat me to the punch with my own data. Enjoy David
Take a look at my other hobby ... http://www.jk-dk.art
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Quote: Gothic Florin: Do you know if they melted down the nickels they pulled? According to the Mint, it was built for the Federal Reserve but never put into use. Due to the 'no pictures' rule inside the Mint, I cannot get a picture of it, but everyone taking the tour can see it close up and even touch it. When someone does find a War Nickel in circulation, the odds are that it was spent from a hoard.
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Rest in Peace
United States
3039 Posts |
Wow. Interesting study and data. Do you think that because of the economic climate now some "hoarded" coins are being turned in, increasing the possibility of a nice find ?
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Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
Would you be willing to share your xls spread sheet?
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Valued Member
United States
317 Posts |
Very impressive! And it does make me want to get out there and try to hunt some nickels! The only coins I'm missing from my circ set ( all pulled from circulation ) are the 1950-D and the 1938-S. I should get out there and hunt!
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New Member
United States
44 Posts |
I may be wrong here, and I'm not trying to be a nit picker. Just wanted to clarify your math.
You used your "find" percentages. And divided them by the total mintage's of the non "find" coins, and you got the number of "finds" in circulation still. Then compared that to the mintage of your "finds" to get you obsolescence rate.
example. 1% of the coins I search are finds. 100,000 were minted that are not finds. So one could assume that 1,000 finds are circulating still. I then know that only 10,000 finds were minted. So my obsolescence rate is 90%
I think this is what you did in your math if not sorry.
The thing is I don't think you can go by the total mintage's of non "find" coins. I think you need to go by the number of circulating non "finds". Which would be vastly lower then the total mintage's. And virtually impossible to know. But I'm sure there is a number somewhere.
new example. 1% of the coins I search are finds. 50,000 non "finds" are still circulating. So one could assume that 500 "finds" are circulating still. I then know that only 10,000 finds were minted. So my obsolescence rate for a "find" is 95%
Hope this makes sense. And I think what your doing is awesome.
I would love to see some numbers of circulating coinage. like all the coins sitting in vaults of armored carriers. Especially of halves :)
Even if only 1,000,000,000 halves were in circulation. From my find rates of silver at .25% that means that there are 2.5 million silvers out there!
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Replies: 27 / Views: 6,724 |
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