I was just going thru some of my collection to see what low survival population coins I may have. Naturally, the older bust types, and early cents and Half Cents have not only low mintages but low survival rates as well. I came across a 1843 braided hair cent in my collection that by all standards is not rare yet when I checked the PCGS population reports, it lists this coin as a R-6.4 with an estimated survival in all grades of only 300. When I did an ebay search for 1843 cents it shows a list of 305 of them.So I guess my question is, how much faith should I be putting in the estimated survival reports? Could their rating of R6.4 and 300 surviving be just a misprint? This was for the 1843 Mature head and large letters reverse.
When you search on ebay you get a compilation of all the 1843 cents (and probably some coins that aren't actually 1843 cents, which might be overinflating the counts further, but regardless 1843 is not a rare date), while the PCGS report is only for a particular (and probably scarcer) variety. I'm guessing that the combined survival estimates for all the varieties of the date are probably in the tens of thousands.
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