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 Replies: 15 / Views: 1,871 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1713 Posts |
What mintages are low enough that they are worth saving? What do you keep?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1713 Posts |
Anything. All of it. Just in general. I'm doing halves right now. What's considered a low mintage?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
I would say the 5 lowest mintages of a series would be considered low mintage, I guess. But if somethings low mintage doesn't necessary mean that it's valuable. The RedBook lists mintages of coins, so that would be a good place to start and find the different kinds of low mintages. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2269 Posts |
I always considered any mintage under 1 million, to be a low mintage. IMHO, any key is considered a low mintage coin.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
In what country? For example here in the USA the population has reached 300,000,000 people. Our government wants all of them to become coin collectors and the proof is the constant issuing of coins with everything on them but an odor. Lets assume that half those are to old, to young to collect coins. Then of the rest about half just don't care to collect coins. Again, half left dosen't have the money to collect coins. Many of the rest are out of work, hate coins, to busy to collect coins. Basically that leaves me and you so any coin with a mintage of over 2 is not worth saving.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19935 Posts |
LOL Carl
Personally, in general, I consider low mintage <10,000 coins.
Lincoln Cent Lover!VERDI-CARE™ INVENTOR https://verdi.care/
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
It really depends on the series. For current half dollars I would consider 2 million to be low, but not particularly valuable. Significanly low maybe 1 million. But all of those are actually readily available, just more costly. The only truely scarce coin in the Kennedy half series is the 1998 silver matte issue from the RFK commemorative set. (62,350) As a general rule non-gold coins are better if they have a mintage < 1 million. Very good if they have mintage <200,000. For gold coins good appears to be <20,000. Edited by Conder101
09/06/2007 2:41 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3343 Posts |
I'll keep about anything, but I consider for US circulating coins low mintage silver to be under 100,000, and for gold coins to be under 10,000. I don't follow the other metals too closely, and for commemoratives or proofs I have no interest in mintage numbers at all. [If it wasn't made to circulate, it's not a coin in my opinion - it's a medallion.]
"Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1173 Posts |
Arthrene...I believe your attacking the problem from the wrong angle. There is no way to identify a specific mintage number that separates the "collectible" from the "noncollectible" because that would change with each series. What's "low mintage" for Lincoln wheat cents or Mercury dimes is almost "common" in 3CN's, for example. In other words, there's no answer possible to your question without knowing the series and relative collector interest in the series. Just keep everything.  |
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Valued Member
United States
204 Posts |
I think anytime you consider what is a low mintage for a coin you also need to consider its liquidity (called scarecity in marketing) - how many are generally available for sale at anyone point. For some of the coins I watch, they are not rare by my standards (>50,000 minted and modern), but they are scarce (few sellers). Other items with lower mintages are much more readily available. For older series I collect (e.g. Peace dollars) I use the price listings and price guides as reference to the relative scarcity. Note the difference between a 1935s in EF and AU - for most of the series the difference is <75% for comparably mintage figures of the 24s and 25s, but for this year it is around 280% higher in AU than EF. This means even if there are an equivalent number available (which is doubtful due to melts done at the mint), there are fewer in the higher grade as a relative proportion of those available (till someone finds/sells a cache of them). |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Basically mostly already said about some coins with low mintages are so common they can be easily found and some wath hign mintages are in reality scarce. Example is the 31D Mercury dime. 4th lowest mintage in the entire series and yet no real value and commonly found everywhere. 31S Lincoln Cent another example of low mintage and commonly found everywhere. Contrary to that is I have spent years looking for a 1920D Lincoln in MS grades and although a high mintage coin with little value, not much luck finding them. Such is the thing called price and demand I guess. Remember, unlike a car, TV set, toaster, coins do not have a manufacturers retail list price stamped on them so they are what they are. |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
9376 Posts |
When you look at the Red Book, halves from 2002 (P & D) onwards are not issued for circulation and only have mintages about 2,500,000 to 3,000,000. So I guess that makes them low mintage when compared to the normal mintages before that. Steve |
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Rest in Peace
United States
3730 Posts |
Another thing to look for would be the "special" coins which never were circulated. Examples would be the 1970 D Kennedy, and the 1996 W Roosevelt.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1713 Posts |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
Rarity is not only dependent on mintage but also surviving population. A 1950-D Jefferson nickel or a 1931-S Lincoln Cent are low mintage coins for their respective series but large numbers of those coins were hoarded creating a large surviving population, especially in higher grades. A coin like a 1903-O Morgan $1 had a mintage of 4.45 million yet Greysheet ask is $280 in fine condition. A large number of 1903-O Morgans were melted due to the Pittman Act so few are still in existence despite a significant mintage. quote:
W Roosevelt?
Arthene, for the 50th anniv of the Roosevelt dime, the US Mint did something special- it included a West Point minted dime in the annual mint set in addition to the Philly and Denver. Edited by biokemist6
09/09/2007 12:11 am
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Replies: 15 / Views: 1,871 |
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Posted 09/04/2007 7:44 pm
