| Author |
 Replies: 17 / Views: 6,709 |
|
New Member
United States
17 Posts |
Does anyone know if any studies have been done to develop/devise a way of guesstimating the approximate percentage of minted coins of any given type/date/mint mark that tend to survive as the decades roll by?
For instance, if a hypothetical gold coin is 100 hundred years old and 500,000 of them were minted, is their a way of estimating how many of them may survive today?
Any information/thoughts relating to this subject would be of interest.
Thanks much,
Ged
|
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
4846 Posts |
unless you did a through search of every inch of the world, no, there is no way of telling how many of 1 type of coin there is
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2150 Posts |
I have seen a formula that some members have used on here, I will see if I can locate it or maybe someone else who knows will post.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
The melting of gold and silver coins drastically affects these numbers.
However, surviving population estimates are available for most, if not all, U.S. coins ever minted.
|
|
New Member
 United States
17 Posts |
Thanks for the effort JJ. BH, do you know where the "surviving population estimates" are available? Lafaa, I think you slightly misread my question. I'm not asking "how many of 1 type of coin there is". Rather, I'm asking if anyone has devised a method of "guesstimating" the number of coins from a particular mintage that may still exist. Obviously, the guesstimate would not be an absolute answer, but rather an estimate based on some observed patterns that are then generalized to other populations. I should think that time, the type of metal and face value of the coin being considered, geographical considerations, and other aspects would all be pertinent. In most cases I should think that all one could hope to end up with would be an educated guess, but that is what I am interested in.
Edited by ged
03/04/2010 09:11 am
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
Quote:
BH, do you know where the "surviving population estimates" are available? Many of Q. David Bowers books list "Field Population" estimates that are the estimated number of pieces surviving. I'm certain many other numismatic books contain this type of data. Try a "Google" on COIN FIELD POPULATION and see what happens. |
|
New Member
United States
17 Posts |
|
|
Moderator
 Australia
16827 Posts |
Quote:
Try a "Google" on COIN FIELD POPULATION and see what happens. All I got when I tried that was a bunch of web-pages discussing COunter-INsurgency.  Back on topic: this PCGS article dates form 1999 - making it virtually archaeological for a web article: it was written back when silver was $5 an ounce. But it's points are still valid - even more so now that the silver price has risen to the point that we may be going through a "second Great Melt". In summary: no, there's no way to know for sure. You can take surveys and get some estimates and rough probabilities, but that's the best you can do. There's no one single across-the-board formula you can apply, particularly if the people doing the melting (or selling to the melters) are using the mintage figures to decide what's "common enough to melt" and what's "scarce enough to keep". If you keep melting down all the "common" ones and keep putting aside the "scarce" ones, eventually the "scarce" ones will become more common than the "rare" ones. Melting down coins effectively destroys the usefulness of mintage figures in determining either absolute or relative rarity. As for methods of determining surviving numbers, "the market" is a fairly reliable indicator of actual numbers of coins that are available to the market. Coin price is a function of supply and demand; once you think you've accounted for everything on the "demand" side, you can estimate the supply. But this only accounts for coins that are "known to the market". There's absolutely no way of knowing or estimating the "unknowns", the undiscovered coins still hiding in hoards and bank vaults. You can assume that the relative numbers of unknown survivors are the same as the number of known survivors, but your assumption just might be wrong. Hypothetical extreme case in point: suppose some crazy guy out there is hoarding 1954 quarters. I don't know why, maybe he got married that year or something; he's human, he doesn't have to be rational. He's got a roomful of the things, all 1954. He hasn't kept any other dates. But the market doesn't know these coins exist - he's got them all years ago from circulation / roll hunting, so he's never directly affected "demand". He's never sold any, so he's never directly affected "supply" either; the market has set it's price (and therefore it's estimate of surviving specimens) in complete ignorance of the crazy guy's hoard. Eventually, the market is going to be surprised when the crazy guy's heirs eventually sell off all his coins. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
I do think that the popularity of junk silver has greatly expanded
since 1980, which may be preventing a great deal of mass melting.
After all: Why would you melt junk silver when it is a 'known
quantity' and can easily be bought and sold as bullion in its
own right?
'Junk Silver' preserves more of the pre-1971 silver coin population.
PS: I used to get a fair amount of 40% halves from circulation in the 1980's,
because a lot of people only saved the 90% silver halves back then!
Re. The '1954 Quarter' hoard: Unless this guy had a truck full of
BU 1954 Quarters in Mint bags, his hoard wouldn't affect the prices
of 1954 Quarters. The junk silver market could easily absorb
one million average circulated 1954 Quarters without so much
as a hiccup, since they're all 'melt value' anyway!
The truck full of BU 1954 Quarters (particularly if they were 1954-S
Quarters!) would affect the market value of other MS 1954 Quarters,
but someone like Littleton Coin Co. could easily sell that hoard...
Edited by DNA
03/04/2010 10:36 am
|
|
Moderator
United States
188415 Posts |
Quote:
After all: Why would you melt junk silver when it is a 'known
quantity' and can easily be bought and sold as bullion in its
own right? Exactly!  Unless there is an industrial shortage, I see to no reason to ever melt a coin, whether it is silver or copper. |
|
Pillar of the Community
Australia
2830 Posts |
at different times in history, artificial factors have depleted the populations of some coins.
For instance, in the 1880s, the Bank of England decided that older sovereigns were to be recycled. This became a simple instruction to return all pre-Victorian sovs to the bank. So, the early sovs diminished in numbers from that time.
During WW1, a lot of British gold was sent to the USA. The policy of the USA at that time was to melt all foreign gold, and so sovs of some years are rarely seen, even though millions were minted. This problem was aggravated because, at that time, anything shipped across the Atlantic had to run the gauntlet of the German Navy.
Regarding 1954 quarters: I would have thought that 1958 would be a more popular year, after "No Country for Old Men" ...
Peter in Oz
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
And estimates, formulea, guesstamates, etc would be just really a guess. Noting the amount of coins of any kind that are being melted as you read this, melted in the past, will be melted in the future and that is only a drop in the bucket so to speak. Many coins of all sorts are buried somewhere, in can, jars, boxes in someone's home. In coin collections, drilled for jewlery, placed on RR tracks, sent to other countries and on and on and on with all sorts of things that happen to coins. Melted in Chem labs for fun, melted with torches for fun, made into toilet seats, lamps, used as a fuse in old fuse boxes, etc.
There are so many things that have happened to coins and so many hoarded in vaults and homes. The amount of any of them would be a complete guess and more than likely completely wrong.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Quote:
Peter THOMAS: During WW1, a lot of British gold was sent to the USA. And the British in turn got 259,121,554 melted U.S. Silver Dollars from the Pittman Act in 1918...  |
|
Valued Member
United States
371 Posts |
So, would the U.S. Government ever do anymore mass silver and gold melting?
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
There were statistical analysis articles on the survival rates of US Large Cents and Half Cents published in Penny-Wise, the journal of the Early American Coppers group. It is possible the same techniques could be expanded to some other series as well. |
|
Valued Member
United States
60 Posts |
Turtle, let's hope so! I guess, there's two schools of thought there, but IMO the more they melt, the less material is available.
|
| |
Replies: 17 / Views: 6,709 |
Posted 03/03/2010 10:57 pm
