I know it's kind of a gray area. From what I have learned, we have: exact numbers of coins actually minted pretty good (?) estimates on how many (of certain coins) were melted down no idea whatsoever of how many coins have been lost, destroyed, etc. exact numbers of coins graded by TPGs So... is there one single web destination that would give me a reasonable estimate of the surviving population of a given coin? I think that PCGS had one at one point... The purpose is to find the most readily available (and therefore economically reasonable) specimen for a U.S. Type Set. I don't care about rarity, mint marks, or varieties. Thanks.
Numista's site has their "Numista Rarity Index" number for all the coins they have listed. 0-100 with 0 being 'easiest to find'. That wouldn't give you the number of surviving coins, but would give you an idea of how 'rare' it is relative to everything else. I know you said you didn't care about rarity, but isn't that the inverse of "readily available" or 'least rare'?
Please see my response, post #9, in this thread - https://www.cointalk.com/threads/chatgpt-fails-me-with-its-coin-knowledge.404450/
