Would Knowing Mintages Of Error Coins Affect Their Value?

I think it would be interesting to know - but probably wouldn't affect their value that much. I get the sense these types of variations come in and out of fashion. I think a lot depends on whether there is a "slot" for the particular variation in the popular books! If there is - the value is clearly driven up!

To clear things up, this seems like a discussion of die varieties instead of errors. Errors are typically a one-off event and are unique unto themselves. Die varieties are a repeatable occurrence since it is transferred directly from a particular die and not the result of mechanical malfunction or poor quality control. Because of this repeatability, rough mintage figures can sometimes be estimated based upon known die life for a series and known surviving populations. The best known example is the 1955 DDO Lincoln Cent with an estimated mintage of 20-25,000.

Since the 1918/7-D Buffalo is an early date, it has another factor working against the surviving population- extreme date wear on low grade examples. Taken from Heritage-



The 1955 DDO die was caught during production which led to its lower population. Assuming Bowers is reasonably accurate, then the run for the 1918/7-D actually lasted for most of the expected die life but it is rarer than the short run 1955 DDO due to attrition.

If it were a recent discovery perhaps the known mintage would affect price. However, something like the 1918/7-D has been collected for quite a while so the price is pretty stable. If someone were to discover a huge hoard of them, that might change things.

For something like that it would probably have little to effect since by this point most of the surviving examples are likely known given the huge premium they carry. If the mintage was huge people could get a little gun shy that theres a bag of them waiting to be discovered somewhere, but until that happens regardless of what their mintage says their availability/graded population would tell more about how many survived to this point.

The older something is with valuable coins like that the more likely that most of the surviving population is already known barring a hoard being uncovered.

To me mintage is one of the more overrated aspects of value. Survival rates are what really matters. Take the 16 D Mercury dime. The mintage is miniscule for that series, but because of that a large percentage of it has been saved and its not hard to find if youre willing to pay for it.

Its kind of ironic how a high mintage can create a rarity since no one saves it while a low mintage creates a very high survival rate

Okay...yep..."variety"...not "error". My bad. But I knew what I meant and most here probably did, too. Still, thanks for the clarification.

Mintage is not important, availability is the key. If a coin is rare and seldom available and then it is discovered that they made 10 million of them it don't matter because it is STILL seldom available and hard to acquire.

It wouldn't change values at all. Mintages are always at best only a theoretical basis on which to build the "supply" side of the supply-and-demand equation for a coin. Where mintages are known, they are often a source of frustration for newbies entering the coin market and think that low mintage = low supply = high value. But the market has had a hundred years to determine the relative rarity of the coin in question and set the price accordingly. Changing the number of coins that "should" be out there does not change the actual number of coins out there.

The only thing on the supply side of the equation that would cause a sudden change in the relative values of the variety vs. non-variety coin are a sudden actual increase (or decrease) in the supply - the number of "survivors". The discovery of a huge hoard of one type or the other would send the value for that type down; a large collection of one type or the other getting lost in a fire or otherwise destroyed would send prices for that type up.

After a hundred years, such events are I think rather improbable, so the "supply" is now pretty much stable. The only thing remaining that can cause a relative shift in values is a change in "demand": a whole bunch of collectors/investors either suddenly wanting one (because of a magazine article, perhaps) or a whole bunch of collectors/investors suddenly deciding they no longer need one (if for example Dansco, Whitman, etc all stop creating a "hole" for the variety in their albums).

Or, to put it in an archeological context: whenever there is a contradiction between the known physical evidence and the known written records, the physical evidence wins. Every time.