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 Replies: 18 / Views: 5,172 |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
It would be nice to know the population of key coins.
Maybe you could do some survey's, for example: ask members here how many have
09 S vdb lincoln
14 D Lincoln
16 D Mercury
32 D and S Washington
and any others that interests you
Use the yes or no numbers to get some percentages and estimate population
Of course will not be that scientific .. but could be fun
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1007 Posts |
I was wondering about this today. This morning the postman brought me an 1840 large cent from an ebay sale,. There were 2.4 million of these coins minted, and I'm 100% sure none are in circulation anymore. Whatever coins remaining would be in the hands of collectors, dealers and lost somewhere. Since 2.4 million minted was common for a coin 171 years ago (the US population was 17 million in 1840), but how many survived all these years is anyone's guess. Is it even possible to make some kind of educated guess as to how many coins survive? |
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Valued Member
United States
401 Posts |
I'm an actuary and what you're talking about is called "survival analysis". Unfortunately unless you have the ability to get every collector, bank and mint to nventory their holdings we'll never know the answer. The problem is you don't control knowledge of the "cohort" of a particular mintage like an insurance company does with policy holders. you can't trust population reprts from the TPG's because those are self selecting populations of better/rare dates and better/rare condition coins of common dates. All we know is the surviving population/condition of coins is monotonically decreasing with certainty (like entropy) due to poor collection storage, lost coins, melting for PM's etc. |
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Valued Member
United States
161 Posts |
just look at ebay, take a certain coin, say an 09SVDB if there is ten on at any given time that is 300 available every month, 3600 available every year... and thats just ebay. never is was or will be a shortage of them. now do a search for 1843-o dime. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
This is a subject that even the experts can have you scratching your heads. For instance Q.David Bowers in his book on Morgan dollars informs us that the GSA sold 962,638 MS 1884 CC Morgan silver dollars. Then tells us that the estimated survival is somewhere between 750,000 and 940,00. Which means that somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 were scrapped by people who bought them from the GSA sales. Not including all those that were obtained before those sales. I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single person, no matter how much the Hunt brothers were paying for silver, that turned in their CC's for scrap. Even in 1980 they were worth more than the going price from scrap. Mind you I enjoyed his book and it is one of my favorites, but it still has me scratching my head when I read some of his survival estimates. |
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Valued Member
United States
401 Posts |
oops...I meant just the opposite of entropy.
Back to JPSNED's original point, I think that for older/rarer coins we will have fairly accurate population estimates over time thanks to the internet. Take large cents for example, look at the offerings on e-bay from the 1790's. Seems to me that most of them are raw. Over time, as heirs and unscrupulus family/friends get their hands on grandpa's long family owned pieces, thanks to the internet they're only one click away from getting scooped up by a dealer or collector both are much more likely to slab it and thus prod the known population to it's true value. (of coure slabs can get broken open but thats another discussion thread)
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Valued Member
United States
161 Posts |
jmkendall, I'm guessing bowers was referring to the number of coins still remaining in the gov GSA holders rather than coins that still exist. of course I could be wrong, it happens from time to time. LOL
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Just announced is that the world population is now 7 billion people, give or take a few million that will or don't know how to fill out those census forms. In the USA it is estamated to be over 300,000,000 pending how many are presently crossing the borders from Mexico.  Not long ago there was a post about all the things people do to coins. If you read that and then considered how many people there are and how many do things like that, it's amazing there are any coins left at all. Also, if you go to those other sites where it is discussed on how many melt coins almost daily, again you should wonder if there are any coins left at all. I guess we should all be thankfull to the counterfieters since they do help keep the amount of rare coins around more.  As it is no one could ever possibly even guess how many of any coin is left even a few years after they are made. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
The closest I have seen to something like this has been the statistical analysis of mintages, survival rates, and variety rarities done for the US Half Cents and large cents done by William Eckberg in Penny-Wise from July 2000 through Jan 2003. The methods MIGHT be applicable to other issues but I can't be sure because I having had the needed statistics course to properly evaluate the procedure completely. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
Thats true Carl. I know a scrapper who, when the price of silver hit in the mid 40s, sent in every silver proof set he could lay his hands on. I know for a fact he scrapped over a hundred sets from 2007 and 2008.
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Valued Member
United States
450 Posts |
I think there are some other factors to consider :
The first year a coin is issued it is generaly hoarded
due to its novelty. That happened with 1916 SLQ and 1909 s vdb's
that is why relative to their mintages they are available, even thought costly
due to their demand.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:
That happened with 1916 SLQ and 1909 s vdb's
that is why relative to their mintages they are available, even thought costly
due to their demand.
Or due to they are still being made today. Naturally not in the USA though. I would guess there are about Double to Triple the amount of 09S VDB cents now than when they were made in 1909. Same with the 16D Dime and many other coins. Wish I knew them over there. I need a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel for my Album. In reality to figure out the amount of some coins all you have to do is take the amount minted, subtract the estimated people that distroy coins, subtract the kids that think coins are for throwing in wells, ponds, rivers, etc. Next call Dansco, Whitman, Littleton, Intercept Shield and the other Album companies and ask how many are requested for next year. Now subtract the amount told from them to the numbers left from before. Or put down a number on a piece of paper and that is the answer. Any number at all will do. |
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Valued Member
United States
450 Posts |
just Carl you are just Crazy ! lol
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1704 Posts |
What baffles me when any of the long time coin dealers writes a reference guide and estimates the population of a given date/mint mark of a coin is how they come up with the number they do. The population reports of the major grading services aren't even accurate since many of the coins have been resubmitted multiple times without the labels accompanying the coin so they can amend their records. I visited a coin shop not too far from where I live and the guy I went to see said he gets several 1942/41 P and D mint Mercury dimes per year from people bringing in their silver coins for him to buy. There have more P than D pieces and typically just one at a time in the various quantities of dimes people have brought into his shop. They are still out there just waiting to be discovered. Ed ANA LM-3175 |
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Valued Member
United States
297 Posts |
Quote:seateddime48174 just look at ebay, take a certain coin, say an 09SVDB if there is ten on at any given time that is 300 available every month, 3600 available every year... and thats just ebay. never is was or will be a shortage of them. now do a search for 1843-o dime. That is not quite an accurate statement. The 1927S SLQ with a mintage of 396,000 should be considered rare. However, if you search ebay for 1927S quarters you will come up with 50-100 listings every week. If you do a search for a 1919 SLQ mintage 11,000,000 you might find 10 or so listings. Does this mean that the 1919 is much rarer? No, but it is a harder date to find. As to the 1909SVDB with 300 available every month, 3600 available every year and the 100 or so weekly 1927S quarters a lot of those are relisted weekly as noone is buying them as the sellers have them way overpriced forthe grades. |
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Replies: 18 / Views: 5,172 |
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Posted 10/27/2011 3:25 pm
