I'm starting a new collection entitled "Less than a Million Club". This will consist of many types, dates, and mints, all of which have less than 1,000,000 minted. Now, here's a question. I noticed that the Barber Half lists 1892 934,000 minted 1892-S 1,029,028 minted. But the "S" is worth almost 10x as much, however more were minted. Why is this?
There is more to the equation but value is based on the number of coins that survived, not the number that were minted. It could be that a large number of coins were minted but most of them were melted before being released. (That happened with some CC mintages.) Maybe more 1892-S Barber Halves made their way to the melting pot later on than their Philadelphia counterparts. Or perhaps for some reason very few people saved a particular issue. I don't know but it could be that there were many more collectors back east who saved 1892 Philadelphia-issue Barber Half Dollars because they were the first year of issue and maybe there were very few collectors out west who saved the San Francisco issues. The economy tanked in 1893 so perhaps collectors who had saved 1892-S Barber Halves were forced to spend their coins the next year. I don't know but the answer to the discrepancy between mintage and value most likely lies in the number of surviving examples.
Precisely. It's not how many were made, it's how many exist now. The same principle applies with conditional rarity. There may be 3,211 of a given coin graded MS65, but only 8 graded MS66 or higher - so of course the 66 is going to cost many times what a 65 does.
