Rare, Very Rare, Extremely Rare

Did you subtract the numbers for "very rare" and "extremely rare" from the "rare" total to avoid double-counting, given that the number of descriptions including the word "rare" presumably includes descriptions with either "very" or "extremely" preceding that word? If you didn't, the "rare" number should actually be about 150,000, or about 8.9% of the total number of records.

I thought it might be interesting to do a similar search of ancient coins currently for sale on VCoins. Unfortunately, some common words like "very" are non-searchable. I was able to search for "extremely," though.

It's clear that some sellers are more likely to use certain words than others, whether because of puffery, or because their stock actually justifies use of those words more than other sellers' stock -- and whether such greater use is justified because their stock is larger or for other reasons.

Total number of ancient coins for sale: ca. 314,000

"Rare": Total 8,904, or 2.8% (including 701 described as "extremely rare").

Sellers that use the term "rare" most: Romae Aeternae 614, London Ancient Coins 576, Praefectus 505, Athena 345.

Sellers that use the term "extremely rare" most: Athena 70, Numiscorner 58, Romae Aeternae 50.

"Scarce" (which should theoretically appear more than rare, because "scarce" coins are supposed to be more common than "rare" coins): Total 2,893, or < 1% (including 6 "extremely scarce").

Sellers that use the term "scarce" most: Coins to Medals 720 (compared to only 19 described as "rare"), Romae Aeternae 316, Universal Numismatics 269, Cyrus Coins 242, Aeternitas 236 -- and London Ancient Coins only 83, compared to their 576 described as "rare."

"Unique": Total 185 (unable to search for "perhaps" or "probably" unique, but including 17 described as "possibly unique").

Sellers that use the term "unique" most: Athena 32, Ancient Coin Art 22.

"Unpublished": Total 717. Sellers that use the term "unpublished" most: Marc Breitspecher 153, London Ancient Coins 70, Numiscorner 64.

Edited to add: Perhaps I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously I have no idea what criteria any given seller uses in applying terms like "rare" or "scarce." I think it's unlikely, though, that many of them take the demand side into account -- not that I necessarily agree that they should have to, as opposed to factoring in the demand in their determination of price, and leaving terms like "rare" as statements only about supply -- or use the precise criteria set forth by Steve Album. I'm sure some follow RIC, as outdated as the opinions on scarcity in its older volumes may be. (The meanings of "unique" and "unpublished" should be self-evident, with the caveat that the justification for using those terms is always "to the best of the seller's presumably informed knowledge.")

 

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I tend to agree with @Valentinian and @red_spork here. Without demand, a coin can be unique but it may not have a buyer anywhere. I think the problem is that people automatically convert the word rare with or without any modifier into $$$ signs in their head whether that is warranted or not. And I’m pretty certain most dealers include that descriptor for that reason because they are in the business of, well, selling coins for as high of a price as they can achieve. “Extremely rare...but there is no market extant” certainly isn’t as sexy and doesn’t serve the needs of dealers whatsoever.
That being said, I think that everyone here is a serious collector in that we want to collect, we want to understand, we want to know more not just about the coin but the circumstances around it’s history and production, etc. With that seriousness of purpose in mind, I think that it’s okay to be a bit flummoxed by the disconnection between the use of the word rare as a descriptor and the reality of the demand in the market. We collect our coins because we like them and psychologically, I think it is a non sequitur that others don’t value our pretties as we do.

All of that being said, I specialize in about three people and casually collect a lot more. The level of excitement that I have when I find a coin that is not common or rare (again like others here, I assign that minimum to coins I know I haven’t seen for x amount of time) is probably shared only by me and the few others interested in my small little corner of the world. I have a few coins that are the second or maybe first known and yet while I will dutifully label each holder “rare,” “second known,” “unique,” I know that these coins are not the ticket to early retirement.

On the other hand, when I show these coins to the people I know share the same interest and they become excited, that is a thrill I wish every person on Earth could experience. Those specialists both living and dead who remark to me, “This coin is special or important because...” is really the gratification I am looking for. If it adds a piece to the puzzle that will always remain incomplete but is tremendously important to me for some odd reason then I feel like the coin and my efforts have value beyond my simple immediate enjoyment.

 

I followed your research happily until you got to RIC. The authors made no claim on absolute rarity but only reported the number of institutions on their list that had a coin. The numbers could be very skewed by such things as a hoard of coins being divided up among the museums that would show as common even though the only coins of that type were the ones in that hoard or the opposite where a hoard was disbursed in the market but not offered to museums. Statistics always lie but less evilly when they do only what they claim and not what we wish they were.

 

Thanks for the correction. But I would think that some of the information in the older RIC volumes on the number of institutions possessing a particular coin would still be outdated, no? In any event, I think that given your correction on the meaning of RIC's rarity evaluations, dealers should be even more hesitant about using those evaluations in their coin descriptions.

 

I did not subtract the numbers for the extremely/very rare, although choosing to do so probably makes sense (unless considering the union of all sub-sets within "rare" which is what I was doing: i.e., "rare" includes those rarer than the standard "rare"). But, I think both views are valid and yours requires less number theory!

 

I thought I would have a little fun with this table and my collection.

First, A for abundant. As a type this is a very common coin. If you wanted one you should have no trouble finding one. However, the general rarity does not say all there is to say about this coin. This coin is a rarity because it is a known hoard coin. Its find spot is a matter of record. How many people have a hoard coin in their collection ?



C for Common

If you went looking for one of these you could probably find one without too much trouble. Not abundant but not scarce either. I wanted this one for the portrait.



S for scarce

Though not a rare coin, this one is not easy to find either. If you really wanted to you might find one after a few months or perhaps a year of searching and or waiting for one to appear.

R is for Rare
Album's description of Rare perfectly describes this next coin. When these do appear competition for them follows. While not desperately rare, they appear only once in a while. This coin is one of only 2 types of denarii with this reverse legend. For a Flavian collector this coin is a must have. However it would also be attractive to non Flavian specialists because of the interesting reverse. The coin may also be interesting because of the unusual portrait. in addition the coin would interest anyone who liked non Rome mint denarii. RIC says uncertain Spanish mint, but I think this coin was probably struck in Tarraco. Add up these factors and you get a very desirable coin for many collectors. There are not enough to go around however and this increases the competition and price for this type.





RR is for very rare

Some coins are extremely hard to find if you are looking for one. The coin below is RIC 655 for Domitian. The reason for the rarity is the rare date fo this coin as constructed from the collection of titles. This is a coin for a specialist because no one else would care. For this reason this would not be an expensive coin if you found one. I very much doubt you would have much luck.




In contrast the following very rare coin is a completely different case. Yes, it is very rare but it is also very different from the many Minerva type denarii one comes across. This one has the legend in the fields on the reverse. However while this would be interesting to a Flavian collector it would not only be those collectors interested in this coin. The very attractive reverse and the superb portrait would make this a great coin for anyone who had just one Domitian. These do pop up from time to time but again there is quite a lot of competition for them for the reasons mentioned above.


RRR is for extremely rare
I reserve this category for coins that have only a few known examples. however, not all of these would be desirable or expensive. Having said that the following 2 coins would be both desirable and expensive if one were a a collector of Flavian coins.

This coin is the RIC reference coin. It is rare for that reason alone because most of the RIC reference coins are in museums and are unavailable to collectors. So it is already a desirable coin for that reason. The PAX seated reverse has to be one of if not the most common reverses for Vespasian. Also, there are other denarii with left facing portraits of Vespasian so that does not necessarily make the coin rare. However, the bare headed portrait left is very rare indeed. It only occurs on 2 types of denarii for Vespasian RIC 773 and RIC 853. I believe there are 8 known examples of RIC 853 (@Jay GT4 ) has one in his collection. However, the coin below is RIC 773. When I bought this coin it was the only known example. Since then @David Atherton was able to find one so now there are 2 known. The fact is though that all of this may be lost on anyone not collecting Flavian coins. I do like to think however that this coin would bring some competition for some of the reasons above.



The coin below is a coin of Titus as Caesar struck under Vespasian. It is also a RIC plate coin and is therefore very rare for reasons discussed earlier. Again this is the coin of a specialist. Sure maybe some may be interested because it is a plate coin but the type itself is rather dull imho. Yes it has the rare short reverse legend. Also it is one of only 2 known to exist. Still this coin would probably not be sought after by anyone casually collecting the denarii of Titus. however, the coin is quite thrilling to me.



There are many ways of discussing rarity and desirability and sometimes these even overlap. As for me I just collect what I like and what I find interesting.

 

I tried to use @AncientJoe's strategy on acsearch, but ran into some language trouble. Does CoinArchives automatically translate rarity terminology? Acsearch doesn't, although it does automatically translate some other terms for search purposes. This may be because there are problems with translating!

Example issues: there doesn't seem to be an equivalent of "extremely rare" in German, they use "sehr selten" for both "very rare" and "extremely rare." At the other end, the French seem to use "rare" where in English we might use either "rare" or "scarce." (Note that while my French is OK, my German is nonexistent, so I'm begging for corrections here...)

Anyway, this is what I came up with. (Note: I excluded cgb.fr from the results due to their extensive commentary which tends to create a lot of false positives. You can do this by subtracting the term "commentaires" thus: -commentaires. That almost exclusively removes cgb results.)

Parentheses separate the included terms with OR, a "-" excludes a term. Quotes search for an exact string. The total number of records is 7,079,256. (The database includes moderns too, though it's dominated by ancients.)

6.38% 451'535 for (selten rare scarce knapp) -("sehr selten" "very rare" "extremely rare" "très rare" "extrêmement rare")
(i.e. including both rare and scarce but excluding very rare, extremely rare, and the like in French and German)

4.99% 353'125 for (selten rare) -("sehr selten" "very rare" "extremely rare" "très rare" "extrêmement rare")
(as above but not including scarce)

2.75% 194'476 for ("sehr selten" "very rare" "extremely rare" "très rare" "extrêmement rare")
(both very rare and extremely rare, plus their French & German translations)

0.39% 27'755 for (unpublished inédit unique einzig)

 

Rarity can come down to the absolute degree to which we determine difference too.

Are coins of Probus difficult to find? - NO
Are coins of Probus from Lugdunum difficult to find? - NO
Are coins of Probus from Lugdunum from the 9th emission (using letters as mintmarks) difficult to find? - NO
Are coins of Probus from Lugdunum of the type "Felicitas standing right, holding caduceus and cornucopiae" from the 9th emission difficult to find? - NO
How does RIC describe scarcity? - COMMON
Are there specialist publications that post date RIC and what do they have so say about scarcity? - IT DEPENDS ON THE VARIATION (Obverse legend, Bust type and officina mark positioning)
Are there lots of variations? - YES

Let's see a few....

Example 1
Obv:– IMP C PROBVS • P • F • AVG, Radiate, cuirassed bust right
Rev:– TEMPOR FELICIT, Felicitas standing right, holding caduceus and cornucopiae
Minted in Lugdunum (B in left field) Emission 9, Officina 2. January to August A.D. 282
Reference:– Cohen 727. Bastien 386 (39 examples cited). RIC 129 Bust type F (Common)



How many examples are there on ACSearch of this exact type? - 23

Example 2
As above but
Minted in Lugdunum (B in right field) Emission 9, Officina 2. January to August A.D. 282
Reference:– Cohen 727. Bastien 397 (17 examples cited). RIC 129 Bust type F



How many examples are there on ACSearch of this exact type? - 5

Example 3
As above but
Minted in Lugdunum (B in exe) Emission 9, Officina 1. January to August A.D. 282
Reference:– Cohen 727. Bastien 439 (2 examples cited). RIC 129 var. Bust type F (officina position not listed in RIC)

How many examples are there on ACSearch of this exact type? - 0

I have seen one further example of this sold in the past 15 years which did not note the variation. This further example was NGC slabbed and graded AU. Discussions with Dr. S. Estiot would seem to confirm that there are still only four examples known to her including mine and the additional example I saw.

Is there anything numismatically interesting about this 3rd example? - YES (POSSIBLY). All coins of the Example 3 type are known from a single die pair and this reverse die is the only reverse die to place a letter in the exe rather than in the left or right fields. As such it MIGHT be an indication of an unknown 10th emission cut short by the death of Probus.

ACSearch results seem to back up the relative scarcity illustrated by Bastien with examples with the officina mark in the left field being relatively more common than example with the officina mark in the right field, with examples with the officina mark in the exe being much less common.

Does this impact on price?

Examples of coins with the officina mark in the left or right field sell for between $50 and $180 from dealers depending on the grade with no real differentiation in the price based on the position of the officina mark. I think that this makes sense as neither is particularly scarcer than the other.

The fourth example of the officina mark in exe sold earlier this year for $110 (fixed price) from a dealer in the USA and I might have bought it at that were it not for the additional cost of shipping, handling, import duty etc. which added a further $80 to that particular coin. I already had one and was not quite willing to pay that level of premium to own two. I would say that the variation doesn't necessarily demand a premium for being significantly scarcer.

Martin

 

RRRRR...!
Only one example known to Thompson and published in NSSCA in 1961. (In the ANS)
2nd example found in a pot-hoard in 1962. Same obverse different reverse.(in a museum)
3rd example found in the Demetrios l hoard; New obverse and reverse which only had one palm!(in a museum)
4th example surfaced in a Roma e sale from someone's UK collection-Roma confirmed no previous sales on ac search. New obverse and reverse. Ended up in my collection thus the only one known in private hands.
Athens New Style Tetradrachm c 160/59 BC
Obv: Athena right in tri-form helmet
Thompson issue 5 16.97 Gm 32 mm
Thompson Catalogue: Obs:New : Rev:New
Rev:ΑΘΕ ethnic
Owl standing on amphora
2 Magistrates monograms beside each a single palm.
Symbol: 2 Palms
All surrounded by an olive wreath


Interestingly a 2 Palms appeared in a G&M auction about 5 years ago but it is clearly a contemporary imitation.

Note lack of border on obverse which is a feature of Thompson #1 and two obverses of Thompson #2 only, and differing monograms on reverse.

 

I agree and I would add the degree to which to differences are visible to buyers. A number of comments in this thread have highlighted that experts may see rarity and value differently - recognizing differentiating details that are not seen by the general public. Markets are not perfect in both the access to buyers and the information required to value an asset. Not everyone who wants a coin knows it is for sale in a particular source, not everyone has the information to judge fair market value.

Experts and auction houses can and do profit from imperfect markets and information disequilibrium e.g.
- How often do you see a coin move from one auction house to another? (just do a search in ACSearch and you will find many examples)
- How often do you see a poorly described coin or misattributed coin sell for less (or more) than what you see as market value? (no shortage of posts on CT about great deals on misattributed coins - or coins that sold too high that should have been called "tooled")

Access to information changes market demand and price. The best auction houses and aggregators provide a good service to buyers by educating - information can change the demand for coin - just look at what happens when a coin is labeled (Dattari plate coin) or has been described as "brushed", "graffiti", "tooled", "repatinated" or "1/5" on it's NGC slab. Like those who pump and dump overvalued stocks, there are those who try to do the same with coins, hiding flaws, claiming rarity, condition and history that is misleading. I try to stay away from the latter and greatly appreciate the efforts of the former to educate with research archives, publication of books and journal articles, well written auction catalogs, etc.

The value of reputable dealers: This information disequilibrium, is the reason that all and especially those new to ancients are encouraged to seek the counsel and services of knowledgeable and reputable dealers - the service they provide is well worth the price.

 

In my collection database I’ve replaced ‘rarity’ with ‘frequency.’


Wherever possible I use the number of estimated dies instead of the traditional rarity rating that we’ve been discussing. For example

• Agathocles quadriga tetradrachm: obv 16, rev 55
• Macedon first district “club” tetradrachm: obv 166 rev 601
• Aesillas tetradrachm: obv 102 rev 372

Thanks to Crawford’s work, the approximate number of dies for the Roman Republican series is available.

Of course there are coins for which perhaps disproportionately few dies have survived, and which skews this system

• Koson staters: thousands in the market from perhaps five dies
  
• Leontini ‘wet head’ tetradrachm: ‘hundreds’ in the market from one set of dies
• Helios / Rose Hermias drachm: also hundreds in the market from one pair of dies

… I’m sure we all know of other cases, such as the Lentulus Spinther tripod denarius that had the second highest rarity rating in Sydenham’s work, but now is regularly offered in EF condition.

My ‘frequency’ category works for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it gives me motivation to check the detailed reference works and do a bit of research on each issue. And secondly, it provides me with a comparison within and among series.

D

 

I buy ancients based on four criteria:
1. Do I like it
2. Do I really like it
3. Do I really, really like it
4. I've never seen this one

 

The problem here is that the theoretical definition of "rarity" breaks down when you try to apply it to ancient coins.

Why? Because theoretically, the "rarest" coin is one that's unique. But essentially all ancient coins are unique. For any specific ancient coin, there is no other one that has that coin's exact combination of size, weight, wear, roundness, patina, strike, surface, mintmark, artistry, etc.

But intuitively we all know that most ancient coins aren't particularly rare. Using theoretical "rarity" terminology is metaphorically trying to fit a square peg in a round hole -- it just won't work. That's why you see catalogue descriptions such as "rare in this condition" or "rare for the type" for many hard-to-find coins.

Personally, I've always used the functional definition of rarity that is so succinctly and accurately described earlier by Steven Album:



Regardless of how the person describing the coin defines "rarity," this is what I think when I read the various descriptions of rarity (although I might not always agree with the descriptor).

 

All in good fun....

 

I really like the concept of Frequency.

 

Both common and currently unique!

The denarii of L Papius are common enough but if you want to take it to a single die pair based on the symbols then this coin is currently unique....

L Papius Denarius Serratus

Obv:– Head of Juno Sospita right, wearing goat skin tied under chin. Behind head, Dolphin wrapped around anchor.
Rev:– Gryphon running right; in ex., L. PAPI.; in field, Hippocamp
Minted in Rome from . B.C. 79.
Reference(s) – RSC Papia 1. RRC 384/1. RCTV 311.
Symbol variety – RRC -. Babelon -. BMCRR -.

A previously unknown symbol pair and the only known example.

 

happy with my Marius:


Marius
Coin: Bronze Ant
IMP CM AVR MARIVS AVG - Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
VICTOR-IA AVG - Victory standing left, holding wreath and palm
Mint: Treveri or Cologne (269 AD)
Wt./Size/Axis: 3.10g / 19mm / -
Acquisition/Sale: $0.00
Notes: Dec 6, 13 - RIC 17 Schulzki 7b, Elmer 638, Cunetio 2509.
Hint of silvering remains.

 

Regardless of whether it is unique, it is beautiful with outstanding symbols. What a great coin!

 

Relative production numbers can best be estimated by the number of dies known to have been be used to strike a type.

The most famous ancient coin, Brutus´ EID MAR Denarius, was struck with 8 obverse and 26 reverse dies with a surviving population of more than 100 specimens.
Without the extraordinary demand due to its historic and symbolic status, it would only qualify as "scarce".

On the other hand I have Sestertii that were struck with a single pair of dies with only two or three specimens known today which would make them RRR but they are not collectible as such (Salonina is not a household name and Hadrian´s galley reverse Sestertii exist in so many varieties that no one will ever attempt to to collect them all).

When I fondle my unique and well-documented Numerianus Medallion however, I know that no one can have it but me and must admit that I feel like Frodo holding THE RING .

 

For a while, some time ago, I seriously thought about chasing these. Then, I thought about you already collecting them, and quite seriously.

Nope. I plan to win. I have already lost. You have a great collection, so I will sit by and watch yours.

I will just go play in another sandbox.

Thanks for posting them for me to watch, Martin.