PCGS survival estimate

For those who use PCGS coinfacts I'm curious if anyone knows exactly what the survival estimate means. Does it mean that is how many coins are thought to survive in total, or just the ones that are considered problem free?

 

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Coins that have survived in all grades, raw and/or graded.

One of my favorite parts of Coin Facts.

 

Some of the numbers can be a little hard to believe. On some $2 1/2 Liberty coins where 100,000's were minted, they say only 200-300 are left.

 

These are estimates, for sure.

But I wish non-USA coin collectors, like me, had access to "survival estimates" of the coins we collect. There may be some estimates for British/European, but not so much for others.

I find that I have to rely on Mint figures from the respective countries, and many times the Mint or central bank doesn't have figures for the coins that they've melted or they're just not willing to communicate with nosy numismatists.

 

What I find interesting is sometimes coins with fewer estimated left are not as valuable as those with the smaller mintage. The ones with smaller mintages are hoarded and never disappeared, so are fairly common now, and then some that were common are now super rare, but worth less.

 

The whole key date thing is a crock. Any of the well known key dates are widely availble on ebay or any coin shop.

 

I appreciate everyone's insight but I'm still looking for a straight answer. PCGS coinfacts disclaimer says estimates are "coins in all grades". Well does that include details grades? If I have a low mintage half dime that is in problem free and PCGS says only 300 survive, mine is in VF30 and someone else has one that is cleaned with a hole in it, are both of these examples factored in the number?

 

Yes, bc it's an estimate.

If the experts had all 300 in hand, then no, they wouldn't count the damaged coins. But they can't see them all so they give an estimate.

 

Actually, it includes all estimated coins. Raw, graded, damaged, etc. If you put the mouse pointer over the blue question mark where it says "survival estimate", it tells you that.

 

Careful - that is not always true. I agree on like the 1909-S VDB, but not on some others in other series. Example 1799 or 1804 large cents - key dates and tough to find. Every dealer in the world has an 09-S VDB - but very few have those dates. In general I agree with you, but not sure I would make it a blanket statement.

 

I would suspect you are wrong. Problem coins cannot be raw? Also, they say certified, not certified with a problem free grade.