Rarity ratings

Hi all. Just wanted to see what you all thought about something I've noticed when it comes to rarity ratings.
Rarity ratings seem to hold a lot more weight (value) in certain series. For example, a rarity 5 in Capped Bust halves always brings a big premium, but rarity 5's and even rarity 6's don't seem to carry any premiums for Morgan dollars from what I've seen. Is that because Morgan collectors only "care" about if it's a VAM recognized by PCGS or NGC (because not many of them are).
Also, with Large Cents, it seems that rarity 3's and up often bring a huge premium... or does that have to do with surfaces?

 

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To disagree, the R-5's in Capped Bust $1/2's don't carry a large premium, but a moderate one.

However, an R-6! is a biggie.

 

So do R.6 Morgans, a very popular series, carry very big premiums only when they are TPG recognized VAMS?
I once owned an 1883-O (I believe) that wasn't a VAM recognized by PCGS, but was a true Rarity 6. It sold at auction on eBay for a premium of about $15.

 

who/what are you replying to?

 

Seems to me is what hot and what's not. Yes Morgans ,bust half's are always going to be hot. How about Franklin half's Roosevelt dimes? Let's look at a key to Morgans 1893 O 300,000 minted yet others dates bring higher premium . Yes survival rate also is a factor but to me certain series will never be hot , while others will always be right up there.
One must also remember all the hype.... so depending on whom is backing the hype it may be a trend and it may die out in a short run.

 

Morgans are hot as a series. While there are some ardent VAMers they are a relatively small collecting group and there are a LOT of Morgans that have probably not been attributed yet. That would also tend to put a damper on values because more may be discovered.

Large cents and Capped bust halves are also very popular as a series, and they have large numbers of variety collectors in each. Combine that with the fact that the number of surviving coins is much smaller and have been searched for varieties for a long time means that there are few "new" coins to examine. While some varieties in R-3 in the large cents may bring a decent premium they are the exception not the rule and are only on varieties that happen to be unusually popular.

 

Rarity Ratings are pretty much meaningless for certain series of coins since true rarity is "meaningless" if nobody really cares!

I have an IKE Dollar of which only 2 are known to exist. From a rarity standpoint AND a Modern Coin Standpoint, this should be equivalent to a 1975 No S Proof Roosevelt. (Exact Same number known)

Sadly, it's not.

Popularity Ratings would be much more appropriate when discussing coin "premiums".

 

I think it is because outside of a few outliers like 1913 nickel or a 3 legged buffalo rarity only matters if someone wants it. Seated Coins seem to have many very rare variations yet they are not really desirable to coin collectors at large for some reason. Same goes for a flying cent or a 20 cent piece. They can get pricey but you better be ready to wait a while to get a fair price.

 

A set of Morgans is what, like 90 some coins. For most people, that is plenty of coins to collect. Pick up a few of the cooler vams like Scarface, the King, and hot lips; then you are good to go.

A bust half set is far fewer coins. Once a collector has one of each date, I could see them wanting to keep going - thus going for varieties.

 

Rarity ratings for Morgan and Peace dollar VAMs work a little differently than do those for earlier series. Short story is that they're actually rather irrelevant. If you don't want the longer explanation, you can stop here.

So you want the longer explanation. While for bust halves or big copper, the R-numbers are roughly a power of 3 scale, the R-numbers in VAM are on a power of 10 scale, where R-1 means tens of millions known (only seen for 1921) and R-8 means unique or nearly so. When the VAM book was first put together in 1971, these numbers were estimates based on searches through treasury bags. The numbers were never refined based on collector observations. Over the next 25 years, there would be a discovery of a new variety here or there, and its rarity was once again estimated based on current observations. Post-1996 (Top 100 book release), there started to be a boom in VAM collecting again. First the major varieties, such as those listed in the Top 100 book were the focus, but eventually more people got more interested in more varieties. As a result of looking at more coins more closely, more entries were made into the VAM catalog. The trend was not simply to have lots of catch-all varieties like "normal dies" and "far date" that would refer to several die pairs, but to study and catalog every die pair for a given date and mint. Several people have done this or are doing it for 78, 78-CC, 79-S, 81-O, 83, 83-O, 87, 95-S, 99, 02-O, 04-O, and others I've probably missed (not sure why some of these dates were chosen). Far more money has been spent on most of these than will ever be made, but that is the nature of a labor of love. Anyway, back to rarity. The typical die pair made roughly 100,000 coins. If you start cataloging every die pair, you're not going to have R-1 or R-2 anymore, and R-3 depends on there being no attrition after the coins were minted. As a result, new discoveries are usually called R-5, meaning the number extant is estimated to be in the thousands. If a new discovery is a rather late die stage or something that makes Leroy Van Allen say, "I can't believe I haven't seen this before," he assigns a higher number. The thing is, the old R-numbers haven't been changed, and it would probably be difficult to do so as well as hard to tell which have been refined and which haven't unless a different rarity scale (URS) were adopted for the revised estimates.

So how does the VAM community deal with this? By ignoring the R-numbers and paying attention to population reports, collector reports of how easy or hard something is to find, and the census in the SSDC registry. Even then, however, a die pair for which only one or two specimens is known, such as an obscure 1921 "scribble scratch" variety, isn't going to generate collector interest beyond the handful of people pursuing those varieties, so there will be little or no premium on the coin. Meanwhile, an 1878 7TF that is not rare, but not one of the most common varieties will bring a modest premium, and a pop-top 1899-O VAM 32 Micro O in MS64 will bring 5 figures. Demand for specific varieties is not uniform across the Morgan dollar series, since I only know of one person trying to put together a collection of all 4418 varieties. Many Bust Half Nuts are working on a complete set of those, however. Likewise for EAC collectors.

Bottom line, I guess, is that the rarity number, even if accurately known, doesn't necessarily identify how strong the market will be for a given coin. Collect what you like, learn about what you collect, and if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

 

Hah. Is it Logan from Vams & More? I know he's got thousands of different varieties.

Anyway, @Morgandude11 is exactly right. The whole question can be answered by simple supply and demand. Think about a relatively common coin like the 1909-S VDB cent. PCGS calls it an R4.4 in MS65RD or better, with 3000 surviving and 70th/143 in rarity for the series. Yet, they also list MS65RD at $5150-$7500. Why? Because everyone's heard of the 1909-S VDB and they want one.

 

According to the registry, Logan is at roughly 2000. Another collector has over 2700.