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 Replies: 18 / Views: 5,169 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2200 Posts |
I was wondering if anyone has come up with a way to estimate the current populations of certain coins, specifically the older and rarer ones. For example, everyone would love to own a 1909-SVDB Lincoln Penny. The mintage was 484,000. While that's a ton of cents, surely many of those have vanished by now, either circulated so much that they became unusable, or lost in someone's couch, or flattened on a train track, or other similar misfortunes throughout the years. And then add to that the large number that will never again see the light of day because they are in the hands of collectors. I'm thinking there must be some sort of algorithm that could be employed to estimate 1) the number of S-VDBs that still exist, and 2) the number of recognizable S-VDBs that might still possibly be in circulation. Just imagine how cool it would be to know how SVDBs are accounted for--either in the hands of collectors or gone to the sands of time--and how many are still out there in circulation, waiting to be discovered! One known factor that could be employed is the number that we know for sure are in the hands of collectors. Any way that could be estimated with any degree of certainty? And this algorithm could be used for any coin by taking into account its age, its metal content (so you get an idea of how long they last), and its popularity with collectors. Any thoughts? Edited by jpsned
09/08/2011 11:25 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
The 1909-S VDB is not rare at all and can be found by the dozens at any mid-sized coin show, it appears to have had a very high survival rate relative to mintage. However, it is quite valuable due to its popularity- it is the pinnacle of most Lincoln Cent collections. Back to the main point, it is difficult to impossible to estimate survival rates with any real accuracy for coins where thousands or more are known. Not only do you have normal circulation attrition but there are also factors such as melting, specifically silver coins. There has been a long history of the private melting of US coins but that ignores the 800lb gorilla in the room- the US Mint. When the Mint melted coins, dates and mintmarks were not accounted for, only the total weight of the melt. We know that some issues have been almost or completely wiped from existence- 1876CC 20 cent, 1895P Morgan $1, 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle amongst others. The rest of the story is that the total numbers are huge- over 1.1 billion silver coins have been melted by the US Mint  The US Mint alone has melted almost 40% of all silver dollars ever minted for circulation, yet even with today's sky high silver prices, you can purchase a beautiful uncirculated 130 year old Morgan silver dollar for around $50. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
687 Posts |
Quote:
I'm thinking there must be some sort of algorithm that could be employed to estimate 1) the number of S-VDBs that still exist, and 2) the number of recognizable S-VDBs that might still possibly be in circulation. This isn't even remotely possible, unfortunately. The best you can do would be some kind of subjective comparison between coins like, for example, to say the the 09SVDB is currently rarer than say the 55S. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
968 Posts |
I agree with Biokemist about the 1909S VDB. The coin market is all about supply and demand. Every collector and their brother wants that coin. So even if hundreds of thousands exist, there are millions of people that want them, so the price is high. Yet, if you want to collect 3-cent pieces from the 1880s you can get coins with mintages of under 10,000 coins for less than half the price than the 1909-S VDB goes for. Why? Because fewer people care about 3-centers.
Of course that is good for me as I (1) prefer 3-cent pieces to Lincoln cents, and (2) already have a 1909S-VDB that I obtained as a kid in the 1980s for significantly less than it would sell for today!
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
It would be nice to know the population of key coins.
Maybe you could do some survey's, for example: ask members here how many have
09 S vdb lincoln
14 D Lincoln
16 D Mercury
32 D and S Washington
and any others that interests you
Use the yes or no numbers to get some percentages and estimate population
Of course will not be that scientific .. but could be fun
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1007 Posts |
I was wondering about this today. This morning the postman brought me an 1840 large cent from an ebay sale,. There were 2.4 million of these coins minted, and I'm 100% sure none are in circulation anymore. Whatever coins remaining would be in the hands of collectors, dealers and lost somewhere. Since 2.4 million minted was common for a coin 171 years ago (the US population was 17 million in 1840), but how many survived all these years is anyone's guess. Is it even possible to make some kind of educated guess as to how many coins survive? |
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Valued Member
United States
401 Posts |
I'm an actuary and what you're talking about is called "survival analysis". Unfortunately unless you have the ability to get every collector, bank and mint to nventory their holdings we'll never know the answer. The problem is you don't control knowledge of the "cohort" of a particular mintage like an insurance company does with policy holders. you can't trust population reprts from the TPG's because those are self selecting populations of better/rare dates and better/rare condition coins of common dates. All we know is the surviving population/condition of coins is monotonically decreasing with certainty (like entropy) due to poor collection storage, lost coins, melting for PM's etc. |
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Valued Member
United States
161 Posts |
just look at ebay, take a certain coin, say an 09SVDB if there is ten on at any given time that is 300 available every month, 3600 available every year... and thats just ebay. never is was or will be a shortage of them. now do a search for 1843-o dime. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
This is a subject that even the experts can have you scratching your heads. For instance Q.David Bowers in his book on Morgan dollars informs us that the GSA sold 962,638 MS 1884 CC Morgan silver dollars. Then tells us that the estimated survival is somewhere between 750,000 and 940,00. Which means that somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 were scrapped by people who bought them from the GSA sales. Not including all those that were obtained before those sales. I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single person, no matter how much the Hunt brothers were paying for silver, that turned in their CC's for scrap. Even in 1980 they were worth more than the going price from scrap. Mind you I enjoyed his book and it is one of my favorites, but it still has me scratching my head when I read some of his survival estimates. |
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Valued Member
United States
401 Posts |
oops...I meant just the opposite of entropy.
Back to JPSNED's original point, I think that for older/rarer coins we will have fairly accurate population estimates over time thanks to the internet. Take large cents for example, look at the offerings on e-bay from the 1790's. Seems to me that most of them are raw. Over time, as heirs and unscrupulus family/friends get their hands on grandpa's long family owned pieces, thanks to the internet they're only one click away from getting scooped up by a dealer or collector both are much more likely to slab it and thus prod the known population to it's true value. (of coure slabs can get broken open but thats another discussion thread)
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Valued Member
United States
161 Posts |
jmkendall, I'm guessing bowers was referring to the number of coins still remaining in the gov GSA holders rather than coins that still exist. of course I could be wrong, it happens from time to time. LOL
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Just announced is that the world population is now 7 billion people, give or take a few million that will or don't know how to fill out those census forms. In the USA it is estamated to be over 300,000,000 pending how many are presently crossing the borders from Mexico.  Not long ago there was a post about all the things people do to coins. If you read that and then considered how many people there are and how many do things like that, it's amazing there are any coins left at all. Also, if you go to those other sites where it is discussed on how many melt coins almost daily, again you should wonder if there are any coins left at all. I guess we should all be thankfull to the counterfieters since they do help keep the amount of rare coins around more.  As it is no one could ever possibly even guess how many of any coin is left even a few years after they are made. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
The closest I have seen to something like this has been the statistical analysis of mintages, survival rates, and variety rarities done for the US Half Cents and large cents done by William Eckberg in Penny-Wise from July 2000 through Jan 2003. The methods MIGHT be applicable to other issues but I can't be sure because I having had the needed statistics course to properly evaluate the procedure completely. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
Thats true Carl. I know a scrapper who, when the price of silver hit in the mid 40s, sent in every silver proof set he could lay his hands on. I know for a fact he scrapped over a hundred sets from 2007 and 2008.
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Valued Member
United States
450 Posts |
I think there are some other factors to consider :
The first year a coin is issued it is generaly hoarded
due to its novelty. That happened with 1916 SLQ and 1909 s vdb's
that is why relative to their mintages they are available, even thought costly
due to their demand.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:
That happened with 1916 SLQ and 1909 s vdb's
that is why relative to their mintages they are available, even thought costly
due to their demand.
Or due to they are still being made today. Naturally not in the USA though. I would guess there are about Double to Triple the amount of 09S VDB cents now than when they were made in 1909. Same with the 16D Dime and many other coins. Wish I knew them over there. I need a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel for my Album. In reality to figure out the amount of some coins all you have to do is take the amount minted, subtract the estimated people that distroy coins, subtract the kids that think coins are for throwing in wells, ponds, rivers, etc. Next call Dansco, Whitman, Littleton, Intercept Shield and the other Album companies and ask how many are requested for next year. Now subtract the amount told from them to the numbers left from before. Or put down a number on a piece of paper and that is the answer. Any number at all will do. |
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Replies: 18 / Views: 5,169 |
Posted 09/09/2011 8:21 pm
