Hey everyone, I'm trying to be better informed, but don't feel like I'm finding the right information on this coin. Cherrypicker's describes the coin as URS 10 (251-500 known)...and yet I personally own 25 of them in various grades...what's going on here? Anyone have a link to some more correct information and mintage estimates? I have a really hard time believing that I personally own 5-10% of all the "micro" S Mercs out there... Thanks~
I have a full coin box of them also. However it is difficult to find nice MS grades. I have always found them easy to sell when I wish to , but usually at a lesser premium than CPG indicates. Most albums didn't have a space for them, so few really looked for the variety until variety collecting became popular. The old timer I bought my box from, said that a full bag of them showed up in San Diego, and a collector got it in the late 40s or early 50s, but couldn't afford the full bag, so he split them up with the coin clubs, and spent what was left. The old timer said he went through his change in the 50s and almost every 45-S was a micro-S. I can't verify it, as he had many such stories. He moved to Utah and passed away about 10 yrs ago. Jim
It's a great story, though. My best is an ANACS MS66 - but most grade between VF and AU. I haven't had too much trouble finding them yet - except, as you say, in higher grade. Coin shop in Salt Lake City had 6 of them that I got for half book...all VF or XF again...maybe I'll keep going until I get a full roll of them and then post it on eBay for the vultures...and use the money to buy a key date or two...
I see it on Numis media for under $30.00 in MS, so that population number can't be right or we got a heck of a deal!
Low populations do not always mean higher prices, especially when there is little demand. The 3-leg buffalo was hyped by coin dealers offering big bucks and many albums had a place for it, so the price was higher than the larger number should have drawn. To my knowledge , the micro-s was not hyped except maybe when discovered. Jim
I have had about 6-8 of them in various grades, they aren't too terribly hard to find until you want nice MS pieces. I lucked into a nice MS-65 in an old gold PCI holder.
Hmm, It is my original photo, so must have been one of my posts unless someone borrowed it and didn't give credit Jim
Nobody plagurized your photo. I typed in "1945 Micro S" in Google and the first result was your photo, posted by you on CT in July.
I got mine in a dealer's junk box for $1, and it was labeled as micro S, so they must not be too rare, or at least there's not much demand. Guy
I found one with my metal detector and I'm on the East Coast! They really can't be that scarce, I've bought a few at my local coin club auctions for cheap money.
Well, I guess that ends my dream of retiring on the profits I would have made from the sale of my '45 micro S
Like any die variety, there were as many made as the die could strike before it was retired. I believe die life in the mid-40's was around 500k, and based on some of these I've seen the die lasted a long time, with LDS examples known. So there were at least a couple hundred thousand of these made, though how many survived til now (various melts, wear-out, train track flattening, cutout coin jewelry, etc) is anyone's guess. But it's surely more than a couple hundred.
