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Posted 03/08/2010 4:28 pm
My thanks to SAP and all other posters who have contributed to the discussion.
It is difficult for me to believe that, by way of example only, studies have not been done that deal, for instance, with the rate of loss of coins in various denominations. I would expect pennies to be lost at a higher % rate than quarters (people are more careless with them, etc), and quarters at a higher rate than silver dollars (aside from melts which are a different issue), etc. So, if you started out with 500,000 quarters of a particular type 100 years ago, you could guesstimate that over that 100 years approximately X% of those quarters have probably been lost. Yes, you can't take the estimate to the bank, but such a study, and others based on other considerations (melts of gold and silver, etc), could be used as a guide in helping a collector to make educated guesses about the available population of a particular coin. Nevertheless, despite my suspicion that such studies have been done, I can't find them.
It is difficult for me to believe that, by way of example only, studies have not been done that deal, for instance, with the rate of loss of coins in various denominations. I would expect pennies to be lost at a higher % rate than quarters (people are more careless with them, etc), and quarters at a higher rate than silver dollars (aside from melts which are a different issue), etc. So, if you started out with 500,000 quarters of a particular type 100 years ago, you could guesstimate that over that 100 years approximately X% of those quarters have probably been lost. Yes, you can't take the estimate to the bank, but such a study, and others based on other considerations (melts of gold and silver, etc), could be used as a guide in helping a collector to make educated guesses about the available population of a particular coin. Nevertheless, despite my suspicion that such studies have been done, I can't find them.
