I just passed through 180,000 coins searched ...... that's 4500 rolls ..... $9000 face value in circulated USA nickels.
What began as a simple goal in Feb 2008 has turned into a
Quest.
Goal/Quest is to fill my humble Whitman 9009 folder with a complete set of circulation strike
Jefferson nickels 1938 - 1961 ..... all coins coming from bank rolls from my home town in Maryland, USA.
Here is my usual 10,000 coin find rate update ....
Overall Find Rate:Recall that I consider a 'find' any nickel minted prior to 1960 ..... so 1959 is the 'earliest' I keep.
Overall find rate is 1.286% ...... that is 1 find every 77.8 raw coins on average ..... and an average of 25.7 finds per $100 box.
Total 'finds' to date are 2,314 circulated nickels ...... which are beginning to present some storage/organizing issues!
Unless they are in my Whitman ..... or a 'special' coin stored in a tube ..... I 'store' my finds in those purple sacks that come with a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey (sacks donated by others of course
)
Well .... my recent effort to send 18 specific coins to a member for his YN growing collection ..... and having to prowl through those purple sacks to find them ..... leads me to the conclusion that there is a better way to organize the coins.
Not that I'll do anything about this ..... let my heirs worry about it I say.
Jefferson Find Rates by Decade:I also keep track of my finds per decade ..... current data as follows:
1930's: 1 find every 1800 coins
1940's (Excluding war silver): 1 find every 208 coins
War Silver: 1 find every 3214 coins
1950's: 1 find every 142 coins
Special Coin Find Rates:I consider 'special coins' to be any of the following; Pre-Jefferson coins, war silver and any of the nine (9) Jefferson with annual mintage below 10 million coins.
Liberty V: 1 every 90,000 coins (found 2)
Buffalo: 1 every 7200 coins (found 25)
War Silver: 1 every 3214 coins (found 56)
Low-Mintage Jefferson: 1 every 6667 coins (found 27)
Other Fun Finds:I've come across three proof-only issues so far .... 1964, 2001-S and 2005-S Bison.
I'm on my third tube of foreign coins ..... so about 50 of them or so to date. Majority are Canadian nickels. Latest foreign find was a 1983 Italian 100 Lire. Someday I'll pour them all out and report on the foreign distribution.
I've come across exactly two (2) 2009-P Jefferson ..... and zero 2009-D or 2010 coins.
Circulation Obsolescence:
OK .... I'll admit to the family about having a somewhat engineering-centric approach to this QUEST ..... but the data on circulation obsolescence is fascinating to me and give me pleasure as my database increases ..... soooo ... what's wrong with that.
Overall 1938-1959 Jefferson Obsolescence is 81.16%
1930's Obsolescence is 81.82%
Pre-War 1940's Obsolescence is 81.84%
War Silver Obsolescence is 98.13%
Post-War 1940's Obsolescence is 78.01%
Early-1950's Obsolescence is 74.54%
Late-1950's Obsolescence is 67.73%
With limited data, I can also report that:
Buffalo nickel Circulation Obsolescence is 99.39%
Circulation Estimates Based on Obsolescence:You know the math by now ..... by using the obsolescence data from my finds and the original mintage figures ..... we can estimate the number of surviving members of any coin in the database.
For fun ..... here are two to consider the next time you hit a 'dry spell' in your nickel searching!
Estimated number of War Silver in Circulation is 16,262,000
Estimated number of
Buffalo nickels in Circulation is 7,428,000
Top-10 Hardest to Find Jefferson TodayRecognizing the 'hoarding' issue with the 1950-D that I shared in my original post on Obsolescence ...... and I have not solved it yet .... here are the Top-10 toughest
Jefferson nickels to pull from circulation today, along with their expected find rates:
1943-D @ 182,773 coins
1944-S @ 129,464 coins
1944-D @ 85,577 coins
1942-S @ 84,998 coins
1939-D @ 82,131 coins
1945-D @ 75,173 coins
1950-D @ 73,326 coins
1938-S @ 70,112 coins
1938-D @ 53,233 coins
1942-P (Silver) @ 48,298 coins
Status of My Quest:I still need two coins to seal the deal ..... 1938-S and 1943-D. You should recognize them on the list above.
Final ThoughtsMy experiences at this wonderful forum have been a time of great learning and development for me as a coin enthusiast ..... and with your support and answers I have learned a lot .... Many Thanks for that.
I started this nickel journey well before I found all of you ..... and the reasons for my journey are as valid today to a newbie as they were for me then ..... please allow me to express them ....
Roll searching nickels has many joys. There is always the possibility of an unusual find (foreign or otherwise) ..... and the variety of potential coins found is un-matched in any other current USA coin series.
There are great learning opportunities ... learn about grade, strike quality, rarity, etc all at the cost of 5 cents per coin.
And .... this series is the only current USA circulating series over 50 years old where one can reasonably hope to complete the set from change alone ...... at face value.
I commend to you the humble nickel .... and wish for you many happy day of roll searching through them.
Best
David
Posted 05/06/2010 07:24 am
...... but ..... for you ...
