Nickel Find Rates @ 250,000 Coins - Coin Community Forum

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nickelsearcher Moderator United States 15409 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 6:38 pm Fair Warning ... this will be a long thread filled with fascinating USA nickel roll searching facts and figures! Soooo ... I just passed through 250,000 bank rolled USA nickels searched ... that's 1/4 million coins ... $12,500 face value ... 125 boxes. Geepers ... that is a lot of coins. 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 ... with all coins coming from bank rolls in my home town Maryland USA. I'm also working on my Dansco 7113 ... filling the years 1962 - 2011 in that album. My previous update was on 12/27/2010 where I shared my 230,000 coin data. This is my latest update ... Nickel find rates at 250,000 coins searched. Overall Find Rate: Recall that I consider a 'find' to be any nickel minted prior to 1960 ... so 1959 is the earliest I keep in my database. My overall find rate is 1.309% ... that is 1 find every 76.38 coins ... an average of 26.2 finds per $100 box (2000 coins). This is down a slight bit from my 230,000 coin searched overall find rate of 1.313%. I have now pulled 3,273 nickels older than 1960 from circulation ... starting to wonder if you can call me a hoarder! Fun Finds in the Previous 20,000 Coins: These previous 10 boxes (20,000 coins) were on par with the usual fun roll finds ... with the notable exception of ... My gobsmacking huge Cud on the reverse of a well circulated 1980-P Jefferson ... you can see it here: https://goccf.com/t/82993 I also had a lot of fun sharing my PMD nickel collection with you ... if you missed the amazing things folks can do with coins, you can read about my damaged coin finds here ... https://goccf.com/t/86397 I also came across 13 total 'special' coins ... 7 War Silver, 3 Buffalo and 3 low-mintage Jefferson in the previous 10 boxes. Overall find rates for these 'special' coins are given further below. Jefferson Find Rates by Decade: I keep track of my Jefferson find rates by individual coin and also by decade ... current decade find rates are as follows: 1930's: 1 find every 1736 raw coins 1940's (excluding war silver): 1 find every 206 coins War Silver: 1 find every 2907 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 coins. Liberty V: 1 find every 83,333 coins (found 3) Buffalo: 1 find every 6,579 coins (found 38) War Silver: 1 find every 2,907 coins (found 86) Low-Mintage Jefferson: 1 find every 7,143 coins (found 35) Fun With Statistics! Sooo ... I have created an Excel spreadsheet which allows me to analyze my finds ... and have as well developed and socialized the concepts of 'expected find rates' and 'circulation obsolescence'. Regular readers of these updates have the concepts figured out ... welcome newcomers can brush up here: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...&whichpage=1 Onward to fun with statistics. Circulation Obsolescence: I have updated my database to include the 2010 Jefferson mintage ... so these are the current facts and statistical estimates. Overall 1938-1959 Jefferson circulation obsolescence is 80.59%. This compares well with my reported 230,000 coin update where it was 80.75%. Bottom line ... 4 of 5 Jefferson minted between 1938 and 1959 have been lost to us! Current obsolescence data is: 1930's @ 80.94% Pre-War 1940's @ 81.01% War Silver @ 97.91% Post-War 1940's @ 78.04% Early 1950's @ 73.13% Late 1950's @ 66.93% I believe I now have enough data (250,000 coins) to report on some other interesting obsolescence figures ... Liberty nickel Obsolescence is 99.89% Buffalo nickel Obsolescence is 99.33% Low-Mintage Jefferson (9 coins) Obsolescence is 87.11% Circulation Estimates Based on Obsolescence: You know the math by now ... by using the original mintage totals for any coin and the circulation obsolescence data ... we can estimate the total number of surviving members of any coin in my database ... Just for fun ... as a way to illustrate the method ... consider that the entire Buffalo nickel mintage 1913 - 1938 was 1,212,899,041 coins. That is a fact. My obsolescence data says that 99.33% of them have been removed from circulation ... that is an estimate based on my 250,000 coin data ... this leaves what may appear to be a trivial 0.67% still around ... but that still represents a significant number of Buffalo nickels hanging out there waiting for us to find! Sooo ... keep in mind these estimates of current total circulating nickles when you hit your next long roll-searching dry spell. Estimated number of Liberty in circulation today is 652,800 Estimated number of Buffalo in circulation today is 8,177,500 Estimated number of War Silver Jefferson in circulation today is 18,182,500 Estimated number of low-mintage Jefferson in circulation today is 7,399,900 Interesting mintage trivia ... There are 29 total Jefferson date/mm mintage that exceed the entire 1883-1912 mintage of the Liberty nickel series (which was 602,010,870 coins). Both the 1964-D and 2000-D Jefferson mintage exceed the entire 1913-1938 mintage of the Buffalo nickel series (which was 1,212,899,041 coins). Gotta enjoy those fun trivia facts. Toughest Jefferson to Find Today I changed this section of the report to tailor it to the current Jefferson roll-searcher. There are 56 Jefferson nickels by date/mm from 1938-1959 (the span of my database) ... and I realize many of you search for them by boxes. Sooo ... using my predicted find rates ... there are 20 of these 56 coins that you should expect to find today, on average, in less than 1 per 10 boxes. Recall the issue I discussed with hoarding of the 1950-D in my original thread on obsolescence ... I recognize the predicted find rates for the 1950-D are not correct ... anybody who knows the correct 1950-D hoarding rate can help me out here. Following are the 20 total Jefferson that on average take more than 10 boxes to find in circulation today ... these are the 'top-20 toughest' ... in order of current predicted find rate: 1943-D @ 165,344 coins 1944-S @ 116,856 coins 1939-D @ 78,914 coins 1944-D @ 78,268 coins 1942-S @ 76,862 coins 1950-D @ 74,801 coins (assuming no hoarding ... actually tougher) 1945-D @ 68,054 coins 1938-S @ 67,553 coins 1938-D @ 51,668 coins 1942-P (Silver) @ 43,695 coins 1945-S @ 42,905 coins 1939-S @ 41,826 coins 1951-S @ 25,299 coins 1949-S @ 24,777 coins 1943-S @ 24,301 coins 1948-S @ 21,304 coins 1944-P @ 21,223 coins 1945-P @ 21,178 coins 1955 @ 20,264 coins 1950 @ 20,082 coins Dedicated nickel roll searchers will recognize all the coins on this list ... and according to the law of averages I should have completed the Quest a long time ago. Stop Bothering Me ... Easiest Jefferson to Find: Again ... considering the series 1939 - 1959 ... there are 7 coins which show up on average better than 1 per box ... in easiest order they are as follows with predicted find rates: 1958-D @ 950 coins 1959-D @ 994 coins 1957-D @ 1,168 coins 1941 @ 1,370 coins 1946 @ 1,494 coins 1940 @ 1,577 coins 1954-D @ 1,679 coins Dedicated nickel searchers have plenty duplicates of these 7 coins! Status of my Quest: Arrrggh ... I still need the 1938-S and 1943-D to complete my humble Whitman 9009. Where are they? I suspect Dylans Dad is still cleaning up on the 43-D! My Dansco 7113 is complete minus the 2011-D ... all coins 1987 and later in MSFS from circulation rolls. No worries ... I will keep searching and someday we will have a big CCF party when I complete the set! Final Thoughts: If you have read this far in this long (but hopefully informative) post ... then you realize as I do that roll searching for nickels brings great numismatic pleasure ... the variety of possible finds (US and foreign) is wide ... the entire set can still be completed at face value ... and in general it's a great way to enjoy the coin hobby. I commend to all the humble nickel ... and wish for you the best of fortune in your roll searches for them. Best David Take a look at my other hobby ... http://www.jk-dk.art Report this Post to the Staff

tampabaygrampa Valued Member United States 408 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 7:27 pm Fasinating!! Thank you. Report this Post to the Staff
murrellington Pillar of the Community United States 3276 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 7:51 pm Awesome David! Very interesting post. I have a long way to catch up! Report this Post to the Staff
rdlem Valued Member United States 187 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 7:53 pm Quote: If you have read this far in this long (but hopefully informative) post ... then you realize as I do that roll searching for nickels brings great numismatic pleasure ... the variety of possible finds (US and foreign) is wide ... the entire set can still be completed at face value ... and in general it's a great way to enjoy the coin hobby. Great stuff 'searcher! Report this Post to the Staff
coinsearcher83 Pillar of the Community United States 1358 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 7:54 pm Yes, thanks for the data! I kinda want to go to my bank tomorrow and get some nickels.. But dumping is still a hassle -_- Report this Post to the Staff
mitchhailey Pillar of the Community United States 1150 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 7:57 pm I love this post because I go through similar numbers of Jeffersons. I haven't done a spreadseet, though! Congrats...this is great numismatic material. I went ten boxes without a War Nickel...and then found one in a box yesterday and two in a different box today! Last year I found two V nickels in the same roll. In March I found an MS63 '38-S in a roll...and today I found an MS61 or 2 '38-D (going in the Dansco). Anyhow... You should compile more info and write a book. Just a suggestion... Report this Post to the Staff
michaeln1306 Valued Member United States 262 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 8:03 pm yeash....I've been through a whopping two boxs and found over 80 cameo/deep cameo nickels and 6 War Nickels. I know it's pure luck but I think where you live also has alot to do with what you find. Report this Post to the Staff
XavierOfGreen Pillar of the Community United States 2589 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 8:26 pm After looking through your data, I think I'm gonna dump most of my 1958d and 59d I have saved up. There just way to common to be saving. Report this Post to the Staff
Earle42 Bedrock of the Community United States 10034 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 10:04 pm Wow! Thanks for sharing this data. That's an amazing amount of data and a lot of hard (but fun!) work. How much squash could a Sasquatch squash if a Sasquatch would squash squash? Download and read: Grading the graders Costly TPG ineptitude and No FG Kennedy halves https://ln5.sync.com/dl/7ca91bdd0/w...i3b-rbj9fir2 Report this Post to the Staff
schockergd Valued Member United States 397 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 10:28 pm I feel pretty happy to have found 4-5 War Nickels from only $200 worth of sorting :) Report this Post to the Staff
kimikiri New Member United States 9 Posts	Posted 07/08/2011 11:09 pm Amazing info, thanks for sharing all the hard work. I go through nickels every now and then and have done five full boxes so far. To this day I think my most exciting CRH find was actually my first "wild" Buffalo nickel. Anyways in my five boxes I was able to pull 2 Buffs, a 1937 and the other is to worn to see the date, 6 silver War Nickels including one that is a 1942P and several dollars worth of pre 1960 nickels. In the pre 1960's I was able to get eight of the 1955's with no mint mark. Thats seems a bit high, or am I reading your data wrong? Nickels are a lot of fun, but they are more time consuming, and soooo heavy! Report this Post to the Staff
Tunnioc Pillar of the Community United States 3173 Posts	Posted 07/09/2011 12:12 am Excellent work. That means there is still 34,412,700 'special coins' to be found. Start searching everybody! Report this Post to the Staff
jimtaxguy Valued Member United States 60 Posts	Posted 07/09/2011 01:00 am Great post Nickelman. find many foreign coins? Report this Post to the Staff
perfessor Pillar of the Community United States 927 Posts	Posted 07/09/2011 03:16 am This is fascinating. I love the numbers. I am a numbers kind of guy. I decided to test the waters the other day and just bought 10 rolls. Nothing exciting yet. I am worried about taking too many rolls back to the banks. I don't want the tellers to be mad at me. What is the best way to return them? Report this Post to the Staff
murrellington Pillar of the Community United States 3276 Posts	Posted 07/09/2011 04:05 am nickelsearcher: what coins exactly do you keep from your searching. a lot of people keep all pre-1960, but if you searching thousands like you I'm sure there are a ton of pre 1960's that you don't need to keep. besides buffalos, ms nickels, errors, War Nickels, etc. what coins d o you keep? like do you keep only nickels under 50,000 mintage or what? I want to get an idea of what to do because like your results say, I have way too many 1959-D, 1958-D, 1941, 1940, etc. what is your opinion of what to save? I don't need drawers full of pre-1960 nickels that are worthless. Report this Post to the Staff
RollHunter Pillar of the Community United States 687 Posts	Posted 07/09/2011 12:59 pm Yeah, I've been thinking of dumping my 58Ds and 59Ds too, but I've only got mine separated by decade so I don't look forward to the day I have to go through all of them again. I've searched about half the amount nickelsearcher has and I've got $105.55 in pre-60s. Report this Post to the Staff
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