Do countries with a smaller population mint less coins than a country with a larger population? If so, does this makes the coins more desirable for collectors?
Well yeah, sometimes it means they mint fewer coins. But that rarely makes them popular. In fact the opposite is often true. You see, for coins to become popular there has to be enough of them to establish a market. And coins with very low mintages cannot do this. In fact some of the rarest coins, coins with mintages of less than 100 examples and some as low as even 30 examples can usually be bought for next to nothing. Even the gold and silver examples usually sell for bullion content.
A rare coin that nobody cares about isn't very desirable. There are, I think, more collectors of Swiss coinage than of Uruguayan coins, which makes rare Swiss coins more expensive than rare Uruguayan coins. Desirability and value are functions of popularity and demand. Popularity and demand are not necessarily static, though. Sometimes somebody can turn a virtually unknown rare coin into a major popular rarity by promoting it, as B. Max Mehl did with the 1913 Liberty Nickel. Best wishes, Peter Anthony http://www.pandacollector.com
Like Panda said, population numbers are only a consideration when considered in relation to demand. Most US coin mintages that collectors consider "rare" are large by many world coining standards. It is simply the fact that there are so many US collectors that a mintage of 200,000 coins would be considered "rare". There are so many examples of coins where 20 exist in the world but they are only worth $10 that they aren't worth repeating. Bottom line, do not fall for hype of "only 5,000 minted" and overpay for a coin. That mintage may be 4,995 more than the market wants!
You guys are right on the money. Thanks. I just bought off ebay a 1917 Newfoundland 50 cent piece. The guy says only 375,560 were made. I bought it for $4.80.
You guys are so right . Icelandic coins for example before 1940 has never seen a mintage above 498.000 coin and most of the coins from that time had a mintage of 200,000 to 300,000 coins. Finding BU graded coins for this period can be very difficult if not all most impossible but like other members mentioned above they can be purchased fairly cheap. But when a few collectors of , not so popular coins get together to bid on a scarce BU coin the price can be driven WELL above any coin catalog price's. I know I have been there a few times. I once payed 70 dollars for a 10 dollar coin. But thats what makes it fun , To put a collection of unc coins that are just not out there in the open like the U.S. coins. The thrill of the hunt. Here is a link to my web site about Icelandic coins. Still under construction. http://coinsoficeland.com/
Nice site! Some small countries with tiny mintages seem to attract much more interest than others. For instance predecimal Fijian coins tend to be fairly common in nice condition but still bring strong prices. The decimal coins tend to be scarce but there's no demand. Western Samoa gets no attention despite very low mintages. Great collectible countries like New Caledonia can be hit and miss with some popular and some not. People are starting to pay a lot more attention to some of the more desirable and low mintage moderns even when they were minted by the Franklin Mint. All their coins were very well done but they got a bad reputation since they tended to swamp demand. Well, now people are beginning to see some of these issues aren't all that common and some are quite scarce. A few decades of very high attrition doesn't hurt. No, don't look at mintage in a vacuum. The number of coins that were actually set aside for the future is by far more important. You also need to consider the attrition. A Bahamian proof set is only going to have about 1% attrition because the coins aren't going to be spent or tossed out in the garbage. Ultimately the pricing of collectibles is tied primarily to demand. You can't really predict demand but if you talk to collectors about their passion you'll hear the same themes playing over and over. It's about quality, and rarity, and historical importance. It's about artistic merit and things they used when and were common when they were children. It's about birth years and where they or their grandparents were born. Consider all these factors if you want to set coins aside. Better yet learn a series or a bunch of series and try to collect them. Until you actually do the foot work or scour the price lists you might never even notice things like the pre-1940 Icelandic coins are scarce in unc.
Thank you Cladking I'm working on the pictures of the coins for the site. As you mention above about setting coins aside for the future was something that very few people did, In Iceland and from the people that collect and sell both coins and metals there tell me that Icelandic coins are not really sort after, They tend to like foreign coins much more. I get a list of numismatic material that is being auctioned off each month from the main coin club (probably the only one) in Iceland and I really never see coins from any time period listed but plenty of other stuff and 95% of the nice coins I do get come from here in the U.S. the lack of saved coins might have to do with the fact that people in Iceland couldn't afford to save money to be placed in a collection. Someone told me that back in the late 20's you could buy a whole live sheep with a 2 Kronur coin. Thanks Again
If you could buy a whole sheep for a 2 kronur coin in the 20s, I've got quite a few sheep in my Iceland box!!!
Hi Jays-Dad I see you made it here from CCF, How have you been? I Think I would also have a few sheep as well running around my place. I'm going to post some pictures of a 1925 25 Aurar I just had graded by NGC. take a look
