Nickel Find Rates At 300,000 Coins Searched

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nickelsearcher Moderator United States 15450 Posts	Posted 11/29/2013 6:26 pm Pull up a stool if you wish to read an update on USA nickel searching finds from a Maryland member ... Fair Warning ... this will be a fairly long mathematical thread filled with fascinating USA nickel roll searching facts and figures! This is the current update on my nickel roll hunting finds ... my prior update was at 260,000 coins in December, 2011 ... I skipped a few of my traditional 10,000 coin updates ... work and life alas getting in the way ... hopeful that some of our newer members might benefit from this newest update in support of their own nickel roll search efforts. Soooo ... I have recently passed through 300,000 bank rolled USA nickels searched ... $15,000 face value ... 7500 rolls ... 150 boxes. Geepers ... that is a lot of nickels. My simple goal from February 2008 has evolved into a Quest ... I intend to fill my humble Whitman 9009 folder with a complete set of Jefferson circulation strike coins 1938 - 1961 ... with all coins coming from bank rolls in my home town Maryland USA. I'm also completing my Dansco 7113 ... filling the years 1962 - 2013 in that album from the same bank rolls. Keeping Track of My Searches: I admit to being very accurate relative to tracking my nickel roll searches ... I log all of my nickel searches into an Excel spreadsheet and have used that spreadsheet to track my searches over time. Each coin in my database is logged by date/mm ... and the Excel sheet has been designed to update me with current find rates. I've also created some statistics to describe the expected rates at which these coins should be found and in a rare moment of inspiration created for myself the concept of 'circulation obsolescence' ... a statistical method to describe just how many of these coins have been lost to us from circulation. Prior readers of these updates are familiar with my concept of circulation obsolescence ... new readers can brush up at this CCF thread: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...PIC_ID=58454 That said ... on to my 300,000 nickel search update: Overall Find Rate: Recall that I consider a 'find' to be any nickel minted prior to 1960 ... so 1959 is the earliest I keep in my database. My overall find rate is 1.320% ... that is I find (on average) one nickel dated prior to 1960 for every 75.76 nickels searched ... an average of 26.4 finds per $100 box (2000 coins). This is up a slight bit from my 260,000 coin searched overall find rate of 1.310%. I have now pulled 3,960 nickels older than 1960 from circulation ... starting to wonder if you can call me a hoarder! Jefferson Find Rates by Decade: I keep track of my Jefferson find rates by individual coin and also by decade ... current decade find rates are as follows: 1930's: 1 find every 1,648 raw coins 1940's (excluding war silver): 1 find every 207 coins War Silver: 1 find every 2,752 coins 1950's: 1 find every 139 coins Special Coin Find Rates: I consider 'special coins' to be any of the following ... Pre-Jefferson coins, war silver and any of the nine Jefferson with annual mintage below 10 million coins. Liberty V: 1 find every 100,000 coins (found 3) Buffalo: 1 find every 5,357 coins (found 56) War Silver: 1 find every 2,752 coins (found 109) Low-Mintage Jefferson: 1 find every 6,383 coins (found 47) Fun With Statistics! Sooo ... as stated previously ... I have created an Excel spreadsheet which allows me to analyze my finds ... and I have as well developed and socialized here at the CCF the concepts of 'expected find rates' and 'circulation obsolescence'. The CCF link above describes these concepts ... hopeful that a few newer interested members find this a useful idea Onward to fun with statistics. Circulation Obsolescence: Overall 1938-1959 Jefferson circulation obsolescence is 80.11%. This compares well with my reported 260,000 coin update where it was 80.59%. Bottom line ... 4 of 5 Jefferson minted between 1938 and 1959 have been lost to us! Current 300,000 coin obsolescence data is: 1930's @ 79.55% Pre-War 1940's @ 80.92% War Silver @ 97.75% Post-War 1940's @ 77.75% Early 1950's @ 73.71% Late 1950's @ 65.49% I believe I now have enough data (300,000 coins) to report on some other interesting obsolescence figures ... Liberty nickel Obsolescence is 99.91% Buffalo nickel Obsolescence is 99.17% Low-Mintage Jefferson (9 coins) Obsolescence is 85.58% Circulation Estimates Based on Obsolescence: You know the math by now ... by using the original mintage totals for any coin and the circulation obsolescence data ... we can estimate the total number of surviving members of any coin in my database ... Just for fun ... as a way to illustrate the method ... consider that the entire Buffalo nickel mintage 1913 - 1938 was 1,212,899,041 coins. That is a fact. My obsolescence data says that 99.17% of them have been removed from circulation ... that is an estimate based on my 300,000 coin data ... this leaves what may appear to be a trivial 0.83% still around ... but that still represents a significant number of Buffalo nickels hanging out there waiting for us to find! Do the math ... 0.83% remaining of an original population of 1.212 billion Buffalo nickels ... and you can understand my numbers below ... Sooo ... keep in mind these estimates of current total circulating nickels when you hit your next long roll-searching dry spell. Estimated number of Liberty in circulation today is 544,000 Estimated number of Buffalo in circulation today is 10,042,000 Estimated number of War Silver Jefferson in circulation today is 19,564,000 Estimated number of low-mintage Jefferson in circulation today is 8,281,000 Toughest Jefferson to Find Today I changed this section of the report to tailor it to the current Jefferson roll-searcher. There are 56 Jefferson nickels by date/mm from 1938-1959 (the span of my database) ... and I realize many of you search for them by boxes. Sooo ... using my predicted find rates ... there are 11 of these 56 coins that you should expect to find today, on average, in less than 1 per 20 boxes (40,000 coins searched). Recall the issue I discussed with hoarding of the 1950-D in my original thread on obsolescence ... I recognize the predicted find rates for the 1950-D are not correct ... anybody who knows the correct 1950-D hoarding rate can help me out here. Following are the 11 toughest Jefferson that on average take more than 20 boxes to find in circulation today ... these are the current 'Top-11 Toughest' ... in order of current predicted find rate: 1943-D @ 156,546 coins 1944-S @ 110,638 coins 1950-D @ 76,717 coins (assuming no hoarding ... actually tougher) 1939-D @ 74,925 coins 1944-D @ 74,103 coins 1942-S @ 72,772 coins 1945-D @ 64,443 coins 1938-S @ 64,138 coins 1938-D @ 64,137 coins 1942-P (Silver) @ 41,370 coins 1945-S @ 40,622 coins Dedicated nickel roll searchers will recognize all eleven coins on this list ... and according to the law of averages I should have completed the Quest a long time ago. Stop Bothering Me ... Easiest Jefferson to Find: Again ... considering the series 1939 - 1959 ... there are 7 coins which show up on average better than 1 per box (2000 coins) ... in easiest order they are as follows with predicted find rates: 1958-D @ 927 coins 1959-D @ 971 coins 1957-D @ 1,140 coins 1941 @ 1,388 coins 1946 @ 1,490 coins 1940 @ 1,599 coins 1954-D @ 1,722 coins Dedicated nickel searchers have plenty duplicates of these 7 coins! Status of my Quest: Arrrggh ... I still need the 1938-S and 1943-D to complete my humble Whitman 9009. I've been stuck there forever! Where are they? My roll-find Dansco 7113 is complete 1962 through 2013 ... all coins 1987 and later in MSFS from circulation rolls. No worries ... I will keep searching and someday we will have a big CCF party when I complete the set! Final Thoughts: If you have read this far in this long (but hopefully informative) post ... then you realize as I do that roll searching for nickels brings great numismatic pleasure ... the variety of possible finds (US and foreign) is wide ... the entire set can still be completed at face value ... and in general it's a great way to enjoy the coin hobby. I commend to all the humble nickel ... and wish for you the best of fortune in your roll searches for them. Enjoy David Edited to update the link to my circulation statistic thread. Take a look at my other hobby ... http://www.jk-dk.art Edited by nickelsearcher 11/29/2013 6:33 pm Report this Post to the Staff

John7663 New Member United States 12 Posts	Posted 11/29/2013 6:53 pm Quite the accomplishment !! Been on a hiatus over the last year but I have searched over 2,000 rolls/ 80,000 nickels from 2009 through 2012. I had similar findings but did a little better on the silver and still havent found: 39D, 50 D, 44 S. I havent found any liberty nickels-CRH(but did find one cashing in a voucher at a Pa casino, wonder if it was put in the machine by the casino), 11 Buffalo nickels and 84 War Nickels. My favorite find is a 54 S/D in XF. I think I may start up again. Its getting close to winter time and I enjoy relaxing while going through some rolls. Report this Post to the Staff
DaytR Pillar of the Community United Kingdom 837 Posts	Posted 11/29/2013 7:05 pm Wow ! That is a very interesting presentation and analysis ! Report this Post to the Staff
nalaberong Pillar of the Community Canada 2805 Posts	Posted 11/29/2013 7:16 pm How many Canadian nickels? Report this Post to the Staff
wheatchaser140 Pillar of the Community United States 2368 Posts	Posted 11/30/2013 07:45 am Great stats! Out of your buffalos, how many are dateless? I can relate with you on the "Stop Bothering Me" ones with cent hunting. For example, 1944. Aaaaarrgh! Good luck with your album, keep us updated with any new hole fillers. Great work! Report this Post to the Staff
Hoyajay New Member United States 7 Posts	Posted 12/01/2013 7:11 pm Nice work, NS. This is a true service to the hobby. Thanks. Report this Post to the Staff
mcshilling Pillar of the Community Canada 9162 Posts	Posted 12/01/2013 7:26 pm Great read, thank you. Report this Post to the Staff
JustinNH Valued Member United States 116 Posts	Posted 12/02/2013 10:17 am Good info!! Report this Post to the Staff
jgfindring Rest in Peace United States 1380 Posts	Posted 12/02/2013 10:39 am Any Hennings in those 300,000? And the Canadian question is a good one. Also,how many / what other foreign? And congrats on a massive undertaking! Report this Post to the Staff
jbuck Moderator United States 188770 Posts	Posted 12/02/2013 11:35 am Excellent information. Thank you for sharing your data with us. Coin Collector Since 1978 Avatar Old Avatar 7070 Eisenhower Australia Canada World CCF Members on eBay CCF eBay Search Engine Report this Post to the Staff
Finn235 Pillar of the Community United States 6130 Posts	Posted 12/02/2013 1:59 pm Very nice! Did you keep track of any '09s you found? From my experience they are significantly less common than even Buffalo nickels. Report this Post to the Staff
nickelsearcher Moderator United States 15450 Posts	Posted 12/03/2013 6:41 pm Thanks to all for the kind replies. I'm pleased to address the few questions posed: Quote: How many Canadian nickels? Alas I have not updated my foreign finds since my 200,000 coin post. At that time (August 2010) I had found 80 Canadian nickels which made up the vast majority of the 120 foreign coins found. Interesting that at 200,000 coins I had acquired USA roll-found 'nickels' from 20 countries ... believe I have a few more countries represented in the prior 100,000 coins. Quote: Out of your buffalos, how many are dateless? I have found 56 Buffalo nickels and 25 of them have readable dates ... although none grading higher than VG10 IMHO. My 'dated' Buffalo find rate is 45% Quote: Any Hennings in those 300,000? No ... although I would enjoy having one. Quote: Did you keep track of any '09s you found? Actually I have ... although separate from my 1938-1959 database. I save all my 2009 Jefferson in a roll tube ... have found 22 total to date between both circulation strike mints. I again commend to all the humble USA nickel ... a great coin for roll-searchers and IMHO the only current USA series greater than 50 years old that one could reasonably expect to be able to complete from circulation. David Take a look at my other hobby ... http://www.jk-dk.art Report this Post to the Staff
JonNickelCollector Pillar of the Community United States 860 Posts	Posted 12/05/2013 5:14 pm nickelsearcher, Regarding the coin obsolescence of the less common Jefferson nickels, my son and I have found that the rare 5 (38s,38d, 39s,39d,50d) have a much lower find ratio than the next rarest group of nickels (51s,55p,49s,50p), even though the mintages are not that much different. As you recall our find ratio is the number found per million minted and corresponds well with your coin obsolescence. And the third rarest group (46s,48s,42d) are for us easier to find than the rarest group, but harder to find than the second rarest group. Report this Post to the Staff
alanmx6 New Member United States 37 Posts	Posted 12/06/2013 10:50 am i found a no date buff and a 38-s in the first 10 rolls of my first box! Report this Post to the Staff
DoubleEagle20 Pillar of the Community United States 1748 Posts	Posted 12/19/2013 7:08 pm I recommend anyone start searching now. I think the replacement to the current nickel will be a plated steel coin and the US Mint will start a recovery program on the existing coins. My gut feeling tells me 2 years. Really good info, nickelsearcher! Edited by DoubleEagle20 12/19/2013 7:09 pm Report this Post to the Staff
JonNickelCollector Pillar of the Community United States 860 Posts	Posted 12/20/2013 11:32 am I don't care if they get rid of pennies, but I'll be sick to death if they get rid of nickels. What will I do at night? Report this Post to the Staff
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