Questions About Coin Varieties

Initially, we try to get at least 40 RANDOM personally .. not looking for any variety and get an initial pop... then you can concentrate on the hunt and estimated pops. Back in the old CCRS days, 3 or 4 collectors would get add their accumulations together to get well over 100 randomly looked at physically at home to inspect all markers. Most of what we put for the large cent variety in the 2011 Charlton had total populations approaching 200 (in hand)for common dates (for all coins looked at) and then the specific variety counted to get the scarcity. For those who specialized with really scarce varieties, we just used SWAGS and saw if the others concurred.

Dates were priority because that's the one section of the coin that everyone looked at and the serifs on all the letters easily broke off or chipped off the hub so many more letters were repunched than digits. The legends on the hub always remained the same and the last or the last 2 digits on the working dies were many times handpunched .. which resulted in sometimes spectacular doublings/triplings.

For the single serif 1881, I knew it was out there because of Griffin and had at least 200 1881's on my desk because it was so rich in varieties. I figured that I had looked at at least 3000 1881's at shows and ebay before I found my first one and another couple thou before I found my 2nd. Outside of the brass '59, it is by far the scarcest variety .... I looked for over 20 years. I'm lucky to live in the T.O. area because I used to get to 10 or so shows every year, and that was back when almost all coins there were raw.

I think the last count we took on Canadian copper coins website was 6 known at the time if I remember right

i had a feeling okie would be the 1st one to chime in!,
wow I thought the sample sizes were larger than that although okie's search of thousands of 1881's was probably closer to what I would have thought.
the reason for my question is a variety I recently discovered (that I had mentioned in another post)
i have probably looked at a few hundred between online auctions coin show and dealers not to mention others that have looked at theirs. and besides mine papeldog has the only other one I have seen.
so I am trying to get a feel of how rare this might be and whether or not it would fetch any descent premium, as always thanks to everyone who helps me on this site

Gidgit: Maybe I wasn't clear on the terminology as to what I meant by "pops" or populations. The 40 or so random initially that I referred to above is what you each would have in hand at home to start. Then you post your initial queries on a forum (the old CCRS was great for that). Then the 3-5 friends of yours with similar likes/goals would look at their OWN 40-50 or so and you would then have a total random pop of 150-200 maybe. Then the specific variety with all the markers would be properly ID'd (you all may have found 2-3 or less in your 200 total)and then hunt would go on at shows or ebay searches. Then we would estimate how many we had looked at physically at shows or dealers and add that to our total looked-at population that, by then, approached 1000. 10-20 years ago I would search 100-300 of each date at any given show, so it doesn't take long to look through 1000 coins of a specific genre to start getting an accurate count or population scarcity. Then we all would add up our looked-at totals and our "found" totals and get a relative scarcity. From the start date of someone's "look what I found" to getting a semi-accurate scarcity total from 4-5 people looking for the same thing might be 2-3 years, sometimes less.

Once we published the large cent variety section, then a truly "random" search was no longer possible for that specific variety. We all knew when we got together to start the thing that we were cutting our own personal throats about searching for specific varieties for our own collections. Dealers started looking for them and marking them and ebay vendors started detailing them. At one time, in the thick of things 15 years ago or so, I had 5,000 or more Vickies .. .1000 of those 1859's. Brad Gravestone had as many 1859's and Dan in Illinois could have given me a run for my money with early Vicky totals. When we published the 2011 Charlton, almost all dates had a total looked-at population of well over 1000 (counting shows and inspections). For accurate die-tracking, you need well more than 500 on-hand total between your group.

To set up "scarcity" the small group of us compared the ease at which we could find a specific variety given our perceived scarcity and assigned it with a "multiple". The multiple was how many times this variety was worth more than a "normal" coin of that date/Obv base solely on scarcity. Then we would take the average price of that normal coin and multiplied it by our "scarcity multiple". Then we took that $$ total for a VF-20 and compared that total to a VF-20 1858 large cent. Each person then had to decide whether they would rather value that dollar total for the variety or buy the 1858. We gave the "multiple" number to Charlton as to how many times a normal coin value was the variety worth. Unfortunately, Charlton applied the multiple evenly across the board .. taking their own published price and multiplying it by our "multiple". They added or subtracted nothing for condition from G up to UNC. Charlton immediately took 20 or so of the 80 varieties that we listed and put them in the front of the book, in addition to the back section. Once any coin is listed in the front of the Charlton, then Trends picks it up and starts printing it in each edition (normally). After 2-3 years of being in Charlton and Trends, prices from G up to UNC started to spread out rather than just being multiples of the normal coin. Almost without exception, our perceived scarcity and value was right on or close to the mark and has stayed so. Very few of the 80 we marked have dropped in price and many have gained and all have stabilized.

What we did with the Vicky cents would be nearly impossible to do now. You need a small cadre of people with similar collecting interests that want to accumulate items to do research. Then you need a single collecting forum to gather and post interim findings .. CCRS was great for that 15 or so years ago because it was the only things around. You had to have access to lots of shows or lots of coins and you all have to be in separate areas. Our group had me in the T.O area, one further North, one in the Chicago area, one in Calgary, one in LA, one in BC, and a late one in Quebec. We got inputs from others on CCRS for additional info. Nowadays you have 3-4 forums and, when someone starts a thread asking for pops and info on a variety, you may get the same person posting his totals on the same 3-4 forums. When you add things together, you may have included the same persons total 3-4 times and no guarantee that you are all looking at the same thing. Add to that is the fact that raw coins unsearched are almost impossible to find any more, so there are few "random" samples available. And the cost to acquire large accumulations of anything other than cents is insurmountable. When we were doing the Vicky cents, you seldom paid more than $5 for any coin in mid-grade and you came home from shows with 20-30 coins at a time .. all raw. In the early days, you might find 2-3 REAL scarcities at any show. At one time, I had nearly 20 1884 Obv 1's and still have 10 .. and paid no more than $10 for any of them.

Good luck on your searches. Everyone can benefit on past researchers and their publications. The Canadian coin market is small and very little has been written on some of the denominations. It is a real challenge to gather all that is necessary to ID'ing specifics and getting the word around for all to see. All I can recommend is to find similar collectors, read as much as you can and search the archives of every coin site that is out there. Lots of work has been done in the past and is there for the taking. At the very least, you HAVE to get at least one of your group to have a good working relation with a publisher or associate of something like Charlton or Haxby or CCN to make sure than your findings get known to the general population. Above all, you need some dedicated people or person that can put in many hours of looking through a scope and recording findings.

That was an interesting read, thank you.

Okie, the reason why I speculate that the 1881H SSN is from a partially-used die carried over from 1876 is that such a die would already be hardened, "locking in" the SSNs. It's extremely unlikely that the Mint would later soften a die to make a change as trivial as repairing the Ns.

I really doubt that the dies and character punches had to be heat treated between "whacks". To do so would have been so time-consuming and expensive that it would have totally defeated the economy of using full-side punches with partial dates. The Mint would have spent most of its time heat-treating! However, it was necessary to anneal the developing die between blows from the full-side punch during the process of die-sinking.