There is obviously a lot of merit and interest in collecting key date coins. There are even a lot of threads in CoinTalk referring to the keys in various series. I've noticed that people don't always agree on what the keys and semi-keys actually are, especially for the more recent clad coin series. Some coins that might not be consider keys might actually be fairly hard to obtain. Is there any book or link to an article on key and semi-key date coins that provides a good and fairly authoritative overview of the well know and not so well know key coins in every series? Something like this would be helpful to have, particularly when deciding whether or not it is worthwhile to buy or pass on the chance to acquire some coins in circulated grades. The well known keys are obvious, but there are probably some semi-key dates not well appreciated that occasionally slip through my fingers.
Must have slipped right under my nose (the website), it's quite useful. Some other coins, to me, seem like they should or could be key dates. Great website!!!
Criteria? Not sure what they're using for "key date" criteria- they list the whole run of war nickels which, while worth a premium over face, are no where near a 1916-D Merc in my opinion. I mean, if they're talking premium over face, why not list _all_ Mercury dimes for example?
I've heard of them but don't really know them and have never done business with them. But the last time I searched for a handy key dates list theirs was about the only one I could find - so I use it when others ask for one. As for the '49-S Frankie - although it has the lowest mintage of the series it not considered a key by most as it can be readily found. This is another of those definition things - how do you define a key ? In some cases it is the coins with the lowest mintage numbers, but not always. In almost all cases the keys are determined by being those hardest to find whether they have the lowest mintage or not.
Not all Merc dimes are rare or even difficult to find. Although numerous Merc dimes are noted for the rotated reverses, none are listed anywhere as to any additional value. I've actually bought Merc Dimes at a great discount due to the reverse rotation. This is a good article but in no way should be considered complete as to key dates if they include error coins such as the 55DD or 72DD Lincoln then they should have also included the hundreds of other Double Dies, Offsets, Rotated reverses, Missing letters and numbers (they did with the 1922) and lots and lots of others. Myself I would just take a copy of the Red Book and look at any coin with less than a few million as a key date coin.
Most all of the coins on this list are far from "rare" with few exceptions. Maybe "better date" and/or "popular" would be more descriptive.
If you want modern clad (conditional rarity) keys, check out cladking's posts. Maybe if we all ask nicely he will provide a list. :smile. TC
you can also check a PCGS or NGC population report for the condition rarities. When I want to see for free I look at registry sets, they usually give you a good idea of condition rarities
Population reports are fine for coins in low MS and circ grades. I think pop reports in higher MS are a bit skewed with coins cracked and submitted.
but the top pops are the condition rarities. That was my point. One grade lower, skewed, but the top grade is not skewed.
It's a difficult question to answer because there is no formal definition of "key date". Determine the factors that are most important to you (mintage, general value, population reports, variations, etc) and generate your own list. In my opinion, the values listed in price guides are the best delineator. These values reflect the collaborative effort of the entire coin collecting community in determining which coins are more or less difficult to find in various conditions. My method for determining key dates would be to obtain a list of values for all of the coins in a series at the grade that I am interested in, remove errors and other variations (these aren't particularly important to me), rank the coins from most to least expensive, and then select a cutoff point.
