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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,373 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
784 Posts |
Just curious really and wanting to learn. How are coin survival rates made and with what in mind? What are the variables involved and how accurate do you think they are? What are the largest contributors to these numbers?
Thanks in advance!
Russ
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
I would suspect the so called experts take a list of coins. Enlarge that list and makd a dart board out of it. then take darts and put numbers on them and throw them at the target. If a 10,000 labled dart hits a certain coin, they write it down and that is the results of their extensive research. Other more professional pretending experts use their Crystal balls. They look into them and ask the ball how many Ben Franklin halves of a certain date are left. If no answer, they ask their kids. Then there is the Scientific method. You take and coin, look up the mintage quantity, devide that by todays year and then add the nmber of the Month, Day and Time. Then you still ask your kids. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
784 Posts |
...so what you're saying is that they aren't reliable...? :)
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
785 Posts |
I think that's what he may be getting at.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1531 Posts |
It's impossible to know.
Literally.
Impossible.
Like, no way.
Ever.
At all.
You can estimate but you can't know. Coins may get destroyed in circulation, buried, melted down privately, melted down by the government, etc.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
It's impossible to know for sure but you can get a good estimate from what comes to market and how many of them end up at the tpgs. Valuable coins are where it matters most and those are the coins most likely to get graded. But it still won't be an exact number just an informed estimate
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4809 Posts |
There are estimates....and then there are estimates. Some better than others. Some folks here have collected data over very large populations, the larger the better in most instances. From this, a bit of extrapolation takes place to estimate the rates of obsolescence.
Statistical methods can be employed to make reasonable estimates and the only way to do it when populations are enormous; like most mintages tend to be. The Census Bureau found this out decades ago when trying to count (enumerate) the US population.
Comments made here are valid in my opinion. Normal populations are made less predictable when data is tampered with. Burying coins, melting them down, and other special causes erode the validity of an estimate. Impossible to know of course to what extent data has been tampered with. But I'm sure some statisticians can create an algorithm or two to 'correct' the estimate.
This said, I've reasonably approximated the % posted by nickelsearcher (David) in a most, unscientific, manner. Given the size of his 'sample', his estimate is better than others and with my anecdotal evidence, satisfies me. I was hoping someone did something similar with LWCs.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1839 Posts |
Myself, rather than looking at survival estimates I take a look at the total number of coins graded by both PCGS and NGC. Of course they're not perfect either since coins get re-submitted and then counted twice sometimes.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Another way of looking at it is this. I've heard that most of the experts that come up with accurate statistics on how many of any coin still exists, used to be Weather Forcasters on TV. Some used to sell used cars. Some of the more reliable experts used to work on the Home Shopping Network on TV.  I'm a firm believer that all coin population reports are done in Grade Schools by the students. and not necessarily the bright ones.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
784 Posts |
Haha these are some pretty funny responses and I will go ahead and jot this down as 'don't pay any attention to them' for future reference. I just thought it was kind of an interesting subject and was curious as to how someone could possible come up with anything better than a rough rough rough estimate. Good stuff here!
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,373 |
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Posted 04/09/2014 10:03 pm
