Survival Rates For Coins From The 18th Century

Interesting subject!

I imagine that in most countries the survival rate will have been affected by recoinages and political events.

In the UK, very few silver and copper coins were minted during much of the reign of King George III. Therefore older coins issued by William III, Queen Anne, King George I and King George II remained in circulation for a very long time and got extremely worn. On the other hand, when substatial numbers of sixpences and shillings were released in 1787, these coins were hoarded and are still common today in VF and EF condition. However, most of the earlier worn silver coins probably went into the melting pot when the new coinage was introduced in 1816.

I imagine the 1714 Queen Anne farthing has a very high survival rate, as this coin was known to be scarce at the time - minting ceased on the Queen's death and only a few entered circulation: some authorities claim these were only patterns, although well-circulated examples do show up. In 1802 one found in change by a sailor reportedly sold for £400 - far more than I paid for my specimen 200 years later!

It would be interesting to know survival rates for 18th-century French coins: I imagine the vast majority would have been melted down when the new decimal currency was introduced after the Revolution.

Survival rates for different series and different countries will vary widely. Important factors to include are:
- How diligent the authorities were in removing from circulation and destroying obsolete coins;
- The cultural acceptability (and thus the probability) of people burying hoards of money;
- The percentage of population that are coin collectors;
- The existence of revolutions, wars and other cultural crises in that country's history that would have likely seen coins destroyed.

These forces can be in opposition. For example: Germany has always had a high proportion of the population as coin collectors (practically every Prince of the Empire was expected to own and maintain a coin collection), but Germany has also lost two World Wars, suffered from rampart hyperinflation between those wars and seen a communist takeover of half the country after the second war, all of which were likely to see coins destroyed.

Then there are the characteristics of specific coin series to consider. German State thalers with tiny mintages, for example, were almost never intended for actual use as money - they were made by princes who were coin collectors themselves, for sale to their fellow-princes who were also coin collectors. So they're basically NCLT, and NCLT always has a much higher survival rate than regular circulation coinage, as they all found their way into coin collections pretty much as soon as they were made. The only thalers to not survive would be those destroyed by war and revolution, and that mostly would be accidental destruction (eg a house or museum containing a coin collection burning to the ground after being firebombed) rather than deliberate remelting of obsolete coinage.

You can see good examples of the "NCLT effect" in series where both a "special" or "commemorative" coin, and a normal ordinary non-special coin, exist in the same year. Consider Australian 1927 florins. There are two different kinds: the circulating commemorative Canberra florin (mintage 2 million), and the regular circulation coat-of-arms design (mintage 3.4 million). Despite the regular coin being theoretically "more common" due to the higher mintage, it's much harder to find, especially in higher grades, and much more expensive. Because everybody, even many non-coin-collectors, kept a Canberra florin. Nobody kept the normal ones.

Three other points to make on "survival".

Firstly, there's "total survival rate", and there's the "number of coins available to collectors". Many rare coins end up in museums or other state-owned collections which are prohibited from ever selling them, They exist, but have no effect on the collector market nor (theoretically) on the market value, since they do not add to the "supply" side of the price equation.

Secondly, there are some coins that are sufficiently rare that an actual count of surviving specimens is possible. The 1804 dollar is an obvious American example. In the Australian series, the 1813 "Holey Dollar" is a good example. We know from colonial records that 40,000 Holey Dollars were struck, and those still in government hands were officially destroyed once they were deemed no longer legal tender in 1829. Every single surviving example has been studied, both in museums and in private collections, with a total count of about 350. That's a survival rate of about 0.87%. The high attrition results from official destruction, plus the extremely low proportion of coin collectors in colonial Australia (in 1813-1829, practically everybody here was either a convict, an ex-convict, or a prison guard) led to the low survival rate, but any that survived into the 1880s were guaranteed to still be here today, as they were recognized as valuable collectables by then, and Australia has fortunately not seen either homeland war or revolution.

Thirdly, it should be recognized as a general rule that "rare coins stay rare, while common coins gradually become rarer". This is because of the existence of coin collectors. There are enough of us to know "which coins are rare", and these ones are rescued and kept while the common ones get tossed into the melting pots. Survival rates, as a raw percentage, are generally much higher for "rare" coins than for "common" coins. I would surmise that, given enough time, "rare" and "common" coins would become equally "rare".

@Sap Wow, so the 1813 Holey Dollars had an estimated survival rate of only 0.87%! That's an astoundingly low number, even for a piece made after the 18th century! Could it be said that one factor that makes a particular coin rare, or have a low survival rate, is whether an active recall to recycle the coins had occurred or not, and how vigorously conducted that recall was?

I know that the survival rates of American coins is very well documented compared to most world coins. From what I could find, it's sort of like the only data we have on survival numbers for any coins in general. Since it's very hard to answer how many of these older world coins have survived over the years, could some comparisons be made between older US coin survival rates and older world coin survival rates? For example, using survival rates from early American coinage, or up to a certain date (1820s-30s, arbitrarily chosen) may provide a better, generalized picture of survival rates for all coins in the world at that time. Maybe 1840s would be too late. Using a Morgan dollar, barber half, Trade dollars, or even late series seated liberty coin survival rates would not provide an accurate survival impression for older coins, as these coins were made in a different time.

Good question.

Agree about 18th century England, I think excluding the 1787 shillings and sixpences, another type with fairly good survival rates are 1745 and 1746 "Lima" coins and the 1757/58 Sixpences and Shillings, mainly as they were used for a very long time and up to 1816 in many cases. But the average condition is quite poor and worn coins in VG or worse are fairly cheap, along with holed and mutilated ones (Turned into love tokens or worn as a necklace etc).

Still maybe if 1 million were minted, you would be lucky if 30 - 50k survive and of those maybe 100 or 150 would be EF or better and a couple of thousand in Fine condition.

On the other hand, good luck finding say a 1720s sixpence in high grade or a Halfcrown of George I (A task I am still finding frustrating). I mean I am happy to have post 1745 KGII, but more wrapt with my 1731 halfcrown and 1739 shilling as I know those 2 are really scarce.

Now for New Zealand, because our coins are all 1933 or later and apart from the 1935 threepence and Waitangi crown, none are that rare. Plus we only ever had 50% silver coins that age poorly - no precious silver or gold pieces of great antiquity here or 1793 chain cents!

Around 470 million coins were minted between 1933 and 1965 and I would say 10 or 15 % are still floating around, mostly pennies and post 1947 cupronickel. But you can find the silver here and there and dealers seem to have it.

Mainly a huge chunk of the 6d, 1/- and 2/- circulated through to 2006 as 5, 10 and 20c coins. Also back in 1967, everyone was hoarding the old coins to the point that banks and even the government were begging people to return their change to the bank.

The silver coins of 1933 to 1946 is less common, but not rare - many dealers will sell huge bags of the stuff, but the caveat is that most of the silver coin is extremely worn (Between Fair and VG, a few fine), a lot is damaged or stained and not of a collectable standard. Top grade coins are scarce except for the 1960s cupronickel and pennies.

I would guess a common date like the 1933 Halfcrown, 2 million minted, maybe 20 - 30k survive of those maybe 8k are Fine or better, and maybe 2k are VF, 500 EF and less than 150 are UNC. Most you never hear about it.

A scarce date like the 1944 halfcrown, 150k minted, maybe 1000 survive and 800 are VG or worse.

The average state of pennies and 1947/60 cupronickel is Fine or near Fine and post 1960 coins is VF.

The 1935 3d and Waitangi crown, are not rare to find given the number made, I would say at least 300 or 400 of the 1128 Waitangi crowns are accounted for in collections and at least 50 more floating around on the market and nearly any dealer will sell you a 1935 3d, even in UNC/AU you could buy one at any given time. A wild guess for me, would be that of the 40,000 minted, maybe 5,000 are still around.

People knew these coins were collectable from the start and wanted to hold on to them and care for them like the 1940 halfcrown, a low mintage of 100,800 but many were souvenired and I would say easily 20k of them survive and most are VF or EF, same with 1949 silver crowns (I brought a boatload of these cheap and practically use them as calling cards). Generally the one offs are always found in plentiful numbers and in better shape than standard circulation coins with a much higher mintage.

A huge amount of silver coins were sent back to Britain between 1948 and 1950 and was melted down, more was culled out in mid 1960s and most of the pennies and halfpence were sold to Australians to turn into scrap copper and Cupronickel coins were melted down at The Royal Mint and many turned into new decimal coins.

Still according to Robert Peppings book on NZ Predecimal coinage, the Reserve bank estimated some 170 million coins were still being hoarded in 1967 by collectors or unexplained for (Lost, buried in ground, at sea, overseas, stolen etc) that is around 28% of all the coins minted and even today they still claim at least 40 million predecimal coins are unaccounted for, most no doubt would be in collections.