Nickle Find Rates @ 230,000 Coins

I just passed through 230,000 bank-rolled USA nickles searched ..... that is 5,750 rolls ..... and $11,500 face value in circulated nickles.

Geepers ..... that's a lot of coins searched.

Regular readers of this update will note that I skipped the 220,000 coin update ....... life got busy for me at that time.

My simple goal from February 2008 has evolved into a Quest .... I intend to fill my humble Whitman 9009 Folder with a complete set of Jefferson circulation strike coins 1938 - 1961 ..... all coins coming from bank rolls is my home town Maryland, USA.

This is my latest update .....

Overall Find Rate:

Recall that I consider a "find" to be any nickle minted prior to 1960 ..... so 1959 is the earliest I keep.

My overall find rate is 1.314% ..... this is 1 find every 76.08 coins and an average of 26.3 finds per box.

I have noticed a statistically significant up-tick in my overall find rate since the 210,000 coin post. At that time (210,000 coins) my overall find rate was 1.287% ....... and over the previous 20,000 coins (10 boxes) I have found 320 keepers ..... a short-term find rate of 1.60%. Wonder is anyone else is finding more nickels in today's tough economy?

I ask for you kind readers to suggest a better method to store my 3,023 roll finds .... they are now piled together in purple Crown Royal whiskey sacks. Sacks have been donated by others .... of course.

Fun Finds in the Previous 20,000 Coins:

These were great boxes for War Silver Jefferson ..... I found 14 War Silver in the previous 10 boxes ...... way above my historical average. Alas still no 1943-D.

I also came across one (1) tired 1907 Liberty V nickle ...... 2 Buffalo and 4 low-mintage Jefferson.

Overall find rates for these 'special coins' are given further below.

Jefferson Find Rates By Decade

I keep track of my find rates by individual coin and also by decade .... current decade find rates are as follows:

1930's: 1 find every 1729 coins
1940's (Excluding War Silver): 1 find every 204 coins
War Silver: 1 find every 2911 coins
1950's: 1 find every 140 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.

Liberty V: 1 every 76,667 coins (found 3)
Buffalo: 1 every 6,571 coins (found 35)
War Silver: 1 every 2,911 coins (found 79)
Low-Mintage Jefferson: 1 every 7,188 coins (found 32)

Circulation Obsolescence:

Regular readers of this occasional update have this concept figured out ....... welcome newcomers to the update can learn about it here:

https://goccf.com/t/58454

Overall 1938-1959 Jefferson Circulation Obsolescence is 80.75%

1930's Obsolescence is 81.07%
Pre-War 1940's Obsolescence is 81.05%
War Silver Obsolescence is 97.94%
Post-War 1940's Obsolescence is 78.01%
Early 1950's Obsolescence is 73.82%
Late 1950's Obsolescence is 67.24

With limited data (230,000 coins) ..... I can also report that Buffalo nickel obsolescence is now at 99.33%.

Circulation Estimates Based on Obsolescence:

You know the math by now ..... by using the obsolescence data and original mintage totals we can estimate the number of current surviving members of any coin in my database.

Soooooo ..... keep the following two estimates in mind during your cold winter nights of dry-spell searching:

Estimated number of War Silver in circulation today is 17,954,000

Estimated number of Buffalo in circulation today is 8,139,000

Top-10 Toughest Jefferson to Find Today:

Recognizing the 'hoarding' issue with the 1950-D that I discussed in my original thread on obsolescence ..... and I have not solved that dilemma .... following are the Top-10 toughest Jefferson to pull from circulation today, along with their current predicted find rates (just for fun ....... I made it the Top-13 list this time ):

1943-D @ 165,550 coins
1944-S @ 117,264 coins
1939-D @ 78,907 coins
1944-D @ 78,418 coins
1942-S @ 76,988 coins
1950-D @ 71,318 coins (assuming no hoarding .... actually tougher)
1945-D @ 68,089 coins
1938-S @ 67,539 coins
1938-D @ 51,143 coins
1942-P (silver) @ 43,746 coins
1945-S @ 43,004 coins
1939-S @ 41,844 coins
1951-S @ 25,601 coins

Dedicated nickle searchers will recognize the validity of the coins on this list ....... and according to the laws of averages I should have completed the Quest a long time ago.

Soooo .... Status of My Quest:

Arrrrgh ...... still need a 1938-S and 1943-D to complete the set.

I did share with all of you my joy in searching through the 1962-Date coins to complete that part of my circulation-find set in a lovely Dansco album .... that part is now done (looking for upgrades) ...

https://goccf.com/t/73837

And I had great fun sharing my passion for Jeffersons in a give-away of duplicate Full Step (FS) coins ..... hopefully this helped jump-start a few sets out there!

https://goccf.com/t/74069

Final Thoughts:

Hoping someone enjoys this update ....... I truly value and appreciate all the great folks here and willingly share what I can as a newbie to the hobby.

I commend to all of you the humble nickel ...... and wish for you many happy days of roll searching through them.

David