Doesn't eBay take the rare out of rare coins?

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1933 Double Eagle (only 1 legal to own coin), 1913 Liberty Nickels (5 examples) , 1894-S dime (24 minted, 10-12 known today), 1943 Cent on CU plancet, 1873-CC NO Arrows Dime ( 1 known) and No Arrows quarter (5 or 6 known)... the KING of coins 1804 Dollar... All fall into that R5 or better.

 

Coins minted for circulation? I can think of none. Coins like the 1913 nickel were not authorized mintages. Coins like the 1943 bronze cent were errors. So I'm confused on what US circulating coins are unique or meet at least an R-5 rating.

Once again, not circulating coinage. You've listed proofs, illegally minted pieces, and pieces minted decades later than their date suggests as gifts and not as currency.

None of these are coins minted for circulation. I have, like I said, dozens of tokens with mintages in the teens, and survival estimates in the 1-3 pieces range, and they all circulated.
Guy

 

Yes, there are alot available on ebay, but how many are legit? If people can close currency to almost exact specifications, a slab or a coin can just be as seldomly copied.

Ebay just make things more available, almost like a free brokerage. It does not really take away rarity of a coin. Rarity can be opinionated or factuated. Mint marks, errors, mintage numbers, etc. All are personal fetish's of a coin collector determing something to be "rare".

Ebay is actually Capitalism, because it's making a competitive market place where buyers and sellers can compete to get the best price, which always is not the best in the case of bidding wars.

 

1822 Half eagle 3 known
1853-0 no arrows half three known
I wouldn't be surprised if the 1796 and 97 half dollars fall into that catagory

And of course when you get into varieties a lot fall in there. Over thirty of my draped bust cent varieties are R-5 or better.

 

I got a US Philippines 1908 (p) Centavo off of eBay. Mintage was 500... and I got it for $164. Haven't had it slabbed yet, but it checks out as authentic to me (no trace of a removed S and other telltales).

There are several coins in the United States Colonial series that had similar low mintages.

 

RARE RARE RARE! There is a lot of RARE coin on eBay...If we are talking about URS of Bowers - Universal Rarity Scale- Known 1- Unique..*** I do not know if mine is qualified as only ONE to EXIST 1995 Double Denomination UNique with two full dates 1995 Obverse, VDB,Two LIBERTY,2 IN GOD WE TRUST, P Mintmak, ONE CENT, ONE DIME,UNITED STATE of AMERICA,E plu. Plus additional attribution as skull break on obverse and a Crack die variety at reverse.-So I just merely discribed my Avatar is super ultimate Unique on a major dramatic error of 1995 Doubled Denomination out there. Opps..this coin is an Error not intended for circulation but accidentally minted in US Mint.-One thing more when I ask Mr. Alan Hager with regard of Numerical number as MS ++ to add on the slab, He just explain to me is not needed anymore because of Uniqueness of this coin. So he graded it Just MINT.
So I will stick to my description on this coin as UNIQUE without any duplicate. and it is not Rare double denomination as cent on dime of any date..Am I correct?
Thank you.
The coin that I mention is my AVATAR....NOT RARE but UNIQUE..

 

Rare: a coin where there the demand is over 3 times the size of the supply, regardless of the mintage

 

I frequently chuckle/get frustrated when I see eBay listings described as rare when the coin has 20 million mintage. Some sellers throw it out there just to get you to look. But I think that there are more rare coins listed because people know they will sell for a lot, so it's worth their time. If you need to raise $500 for a mortgage payment, do you sell that one coin or 500 others? As many others have said, rare is a matter of perspective. A U.S. coin with less than 1 million mintage is fairly rare, but for some nations, they never produce that many for any year. I've been trying to buy older coins from Belize (aka British Honduras) and most of those have mintages between 10,000-40,000. I'd consider those more rare. Many Irish coins have less than 1 million made, but they sell for a few dollars each.

 

I've explained this before too, the demand is what drives the price of common but famous key dates, like the 09-S VDB Cent. But there's one coin I've seen alot of ya'll miss, the 1849 $20 Gold Liberty Head Double Eagle. There's only 2 known to exist, in Proof condition, according to PCGS Coinfacts. And I believe it was valued at $20,000,000 last year or the year before.

Let me edit that after further research, there's only one known to exist today, but two or three minted.

PR-64 PCGS estimated. $20,000,000 value.

 

No that is the definition of Expensive.

 

According to my Red Book.... Only One in Existed...Smithsonian Collection....IMHO This coin is Not For sale......

 

I would have to agree with Jcakcoin on this one. In a town of 15 women and 15 men, neither are rare. In a town of 3 women and 15 men, there's going to be a fight.

Quantity doesn't matter, it's the population that wants said quantity that deems it rare. A quantity of 1 doesn't make it rare if no one has it or wants it.

 

Well since I started the whole, "there is almost no rare US coins" thing, I will apologize. Of course I know of 94s dimes, many early gold coins, 70s half dime, etc. These of course are rare, but maybe account cumulatively for 0.0000001% of any usage of the word "rare" in US numismatics. Most of the time, "rare" is describing a dime that 264,000 were made of, or a cent that a few hundred thousand or even a couple of million were made. That is what I meant that almost all US coins are not "rare" in the absolute sense of the word.

 

I for one knew what you meant. Seems like people ran with their definition and that's fine. I do agree with you though and my two cents worth is that I don't consider a population of 5 or 15 or even 100 a release into circulation. A release into circulation means an entire populous has equal opportunity to obtain through normal means.

 

Sorry Irish I will not agree with you...Why? We are all here talking about the coin, coin and more coins..not a Womens Rarity..... and one think more a Quantity of ONE is not RARE but UNIQUE....And a quantity of ONE is Not Affordable to the majority of collectors. I think a UNIQUE coin is only for a lot of BUCKs. Now I do understand why coin collection called it HOBBY OF A KING!:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

Unique does not mean expensive by any means. Where do you get that? Almost every error coin is "unique", that does not make them expensive. I have a coin I can confidently say is unique, it was a Justinian Follis, then overstruck, then quartered and struck, then overstruck again. Value? Maybe 20 bucks.

Again, never confuse rarity with value. They have nothing to do with each other AT ALL. A coin can be unique and worth $20, or it can be one of 13 known and worth $5 million.

 

I think your unique coin Justinian Follis or it say a major multiple strike ang you value it about $ 20 bucks is nothing to do with 5 known but worth Million of Dollars. Why because all those coin( example 1913 Nickel ) very expensive and more Popular or most famous if you have a UNIQUE COIN and never been published and you just keep it in a closet or Safe. Your Unique Coin will never be worth of a lot of US Dollars.Because it is look like sleeper coins that will never wake up...Unique Coin Hiding in the dark will no Value at all.....it looks like never existed...

 

Its unique in that there is not another just like it, but its not unique in that there are no other poorly struck, overstruck, or quartered Byzantine coins. It will never be valuable simply because I can go to any ancient show and find 5 other Byzantine coins, each unique, that were also overstruck. No biggie, and no great demand for them. Its like your coin, its unique in that evey error is not quite the same as another. It is, though, vry similar to many other known errors of the same type. Again, technically unique does not mean there are 10 people willing to pay a milliondollars for something. Rarity does not equal value, it never has.