Does anyone know if any person/s or organization has ever done a modern update of how many coins in any series is currently left of any particular denomination? If you think about all the mint/proof sets that have been broken down over the years, how many silver coins were melted, used for cut out jewelery, painted, stickered, turned into rings (by tapping),etc., etc., it would give us all pause to consider what any coin might actually be worth now. How would such a study affect coin collectors in general? How would this affect the entire hobby as a whole? I'm imagining after the big melt of the 60's and 80's that this might put all of us in a great turmoil. What say you?:goofer:
I say that, for all practical purposes, it's impossible. Even if you could get every known collector/dealer to report all possible holdings, there is so much in unknown hands that the census would not matter. All present values hinge on best guesses, so far as I know. If you hold a "rare" coin, you do run the risk of having a large hoard of them being discovered tomorrow. My apologies to any pre-GSA sale CC-Morgan dollar holders.........
I agree, I think it wiould be impossible. Maybe some of the larger historical melts could give a general idea of a range of what was melted, but add to that all the smaller scale melts, and sets broken up, etc., and there is just no way to be accurate.
Is is just not impractical. It is impossible. Just look at this thread; http://www.cointalk.com/t85609/. Red book says there are 30 minted, but NGC and PCGS has certified 44. How many were crack-outs? Breen state once that "perhaps 20" were minted. Later he says "30+" were minted. I have no idea how many there were/are, but with probably less than 50 and there is a 100+% difference between the estimates, what are they going to do when there are 1000 minted? How about 1,000,000?
The IRS could require everyone to account for their pocket change and issue penalties and fines for non-compliance...that might work.
On one hand it would indeed be interesting to know how many coins of a certain denomination or type are actually "left". But as others have already written here, that will be impossible to do. Even if we had such info, we would not really know whether the pieces that have survived are high-grade or ho-hum. In general, a collector who aims at being "complete" in whatever he collects will know after a while how hard and how expensive it is to get the missing pieces. Would precise population figures influence that price? I doubt it. By the way, in most countries of the world, "old" coins are at some point withdrawn. And of course the government then knows how many coins, in total at least, were returned. Such figures may well be publicly available. Here in Germany for example we know that DM coins (the pre-euro money) worth about €3.5bn have not been exchanged so far. That is about 45 percent of what was in circulation ten years ago. But how many of these coins are in collections or with dealers, and how many are "gone" in drawers ... or sewers? Christian
It can't be done, but if it could be, prices for "common-date" silver would go through the roof. The population of 1964 quarters could well be lower than some premium dates.
Well, CoinFacts, PCGS's service that requires a monthly subscription (unfortunately), has done a survival estimate for every date/mintmark combination (at least for the coins I have looked at). As an example, it estimates that for the 26-S Buffalo Nickel, there are 11,000 still in existence, with only 500 in mint state. It provides further survival estimates as well as rarity ranks within a series. Bowers, in his Whitman books, has also made rough estimates for each issue of survival rates. These are of course only estimates.
For modern coins, yes, it is nearly impossible (since there are so many that very few coins can be considered scarce, not to mention rare.) However, for classic coinage, specialist groups track the known examples quite closely. The Bust Half Nut Club keeps detailed records of every appearance of R4 and higher bust halves, and readjust the rarity scales on occasion. Steve Herrman does much of this work, and for the most part it is considered rather accurate (within a reasonable error). I'm quite sure other specialist clubs do the same for their respective series - I believe the JRCS does the same. The thing is, it really doesn't matter how many 1926S Buff's are left, because it is common and always will be common. Same with other supposed rarities with thousands extant (such as the 1916D Merc, 1909S-VDB, 1955 DDO, etc). Its when you start talking about coins where there are only about 100 known (which is a high R4) that the numbers become important - or trackable.
Well, I was lazy and should have mentioned that CoinFacts also estimates a survival of 20 1926-S Buffalos in MS65 or greater. It is a condition rarity.
It's not important when you have stacks of those same coins still everywhere. It's not important when you have stacks, bags, boxes, piles of those same coins still everywhere, in other words answer this question in reverse. There is no shortage of any coins I can think of as a result of melting. Go to any show or shop, ask any dealer or collector - there is millions of all series sense the 1920's and thirties still in existance. Since I have been in this hobby I have seen boxes of bank wrapped rolls of silver of every year going back into the late 1930's. Bu and circulated coins of all series since that time still traded as piles of silver instead of as collector coins. Bags, boxes, everywhere circulated or not there is enough of this stuff to fill in the atlantic coast line from N.C. to Florida. Two major points: if all this stuff ever came on the market at once it would not be worth it to pick it up and carry across the room. Plus, good coins do not the melt bucket see - in other words the good coins just end up going from collector to collector constanly being recycled and never get melted so they are not affected by this. The last thing we as coin collectors ever need to worry about is a shortege of coins - it ain't going to happen.
I think we all would like to see such statistics, if they could ever be generated. The biggest problem would be the credibility of any result. In two cent pieces the author Kevin Flynn, in his book "Getting Your Two Cents Worth", reports his research of production records. Flynn's research reports that 45,601,000 Business Strikes and 7,160 Proof Strikes were produced, with the noted caveats. From 1871 to 1881 Mint records noted a total of 17,557,941 pieces were melted and reused to mint cents. No records have been found that detail the dates of the pieces melted. In his book "The Two Cent Piece and Varieties: Myron M. Kliman attempts to analyze survival rates of proof strike two cent pieced. His conclusion in the book is 62.5 % To my knowledge these are the most current works on mintages or survival rates of the series. Flynn's book is dated 1994 and Kliman's is 1977. So if anyone is looking for a research project I'd suggest this one. :smile
This may seem a bit off-topic, but it isn't. I spent 20+ years in Africa and one of the family's best friends is a VP at the BCEAO. It's probably my only claim to fame (sad, I know ) Anyway, as the various versions of the CFA were demonitorized (spelling?), people needed to bring them in so that they could be destroyed. After the cutoff date, the old notes and coins would be accepted nowhere, nohow. Since Africa is a poor place, I'm wondering what kind of surviiving numbers we have over there? People couldn't afford to save lots of it in the hopes that some coin collector would show up one day! Heck, I was there and doing ok, but they had a 10,000 CFA note that came in at around $25 face. I only put 2 of those away at the time.
As I wrote before, "old" cash is demonetized in many countries. In some cases it actually becomes worthless (except for collectors) after a certain period of time (redemption period), sometimes there is no such deadline. In much of Europe, paper money and maybe high denomination coins are often exchanged while people do not bother much when it comes to "the rest". And I think that would also apply to the BCEAO countries for example. In other words, quite a few "surviving" coins, fewer "surviving" notes. Christian
Christian, Thanks for that clarification. I guess I was fleshing out the question based on the local economy. You site Germany - I'm siting very poor countries of the BCEAO like Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger, etc. Basically different worlds. In my many years in the CFA countries, a 10,000 CFA banknote was joked to as a "Certificate of Deposit" because if you presented that bill to a vegetable seller, a small liqour store, a small african 7-11 type of place, they would basically refuse service because they could not make change for it. 10,000 CFA was a serious amount of money. In fact, there were people who went around exchanging "big" value CFA bills for smaller bills. It would cost you anywhere from 2-5%. That was the reality. So back to the point - in the countries where "old" money was made wortheless - the poor people of the country could not afford to keep it. Christian, you refernce 45% of German coinage not having been returned. My point is that in Africa, where people can't "afford" to hold on to useless money, the percentage of Africans holding on to "worthless" currency and coins has got to be way, way lower than Germany. I was there. People have to do silly things like EAT. Sorry if I come off wrong - I just don't think we can compare Europe with Sub-Saharian Africa on this issue. Thanks
Oh, fully agreed. My primary point was that this (taking "old cash" out of circulation) is something that occurs in many countries, and that there will be a tendency to exchange higher denominations. But of course, if every penny is urgently needed and you don't have many places where "old cash" could be hidden, things will be somewhat different ... Christian
Many thanks to all who replied to my post. I'm thinking the best way to start any census of any kind would likely be best approached by the people at Numismatic News, followed by co-operation from all of the leaders of the numismatic community, ie, David Gans, Ken Potter, Cliff Mishler, the ANA, the grading services, etc. No, it would not be a definitive study, but it might shed some better light on the question. And by no means should it be rushed, perhaps a two or three year study. It might also bring many collectors and non collectors alike together. It would be important no matter what the outcome as it would certainly give all of us much more imfo than we have had in the past. Just a further thought on the subject. Thanks again.
