I started putting together a set of solid F-XF barber quarters last fall, (36/74 so far). I found the BCCS website with their 2006 census data. I noticed that when comparing mintage's vs. their population rank that some d/mm's seemed to be under represented. I ranked the coins by mintage then compared their pop. rank. 7/8 d/mm's with the largest disparity between mintage rank and pop. rank were New Orleans issues. For instance, the 1902-O, has 53rd lowest mintage (4.748 mil.) but ranked 18th scarcest in the BCCS pop. rank. Followed by 1900-O (44/8), 1903-O (47/18), 1894-O (40/14), 1906-O (32/6), 1892-O (39/15) and 1893-O (43/24). These all have mintage figures from 2-3.5 million, not terribly low. Since November, I've been to 6 shows and found these dates to be difficult in the grade I desire. Curious as to others thoughts. Am I reading to much into a fairly small sample? (120 submissions) Have any of you found these and other New Orleans barbers to be tougher then mintages may indicate? Why is this so? Was a growing southern population/economy utilizing New Orleans coinage more heavily during the barber years?
OneHawk: Good observations. And that will be one amazing set when you finish it. As far as your observations, they seem accurate. The BCCS population study is limited, perhaps due to limited participation,but it seems fairly accurate. There probably was not a lot of savings in New Orleans at the time, remember 25 cents was a lot of money back then. And saving by mintmark was not that active. Although not given a lot of attention because of the 1896 S, the 1896 O is really hard, along with the '97 O. Then: If you think that those dates are tough, wait until you get to some of the S mint dates. The 1892 S is hard, but the '93 S is really difficult. Good luck with that set.
also, check out Indianhead's comments http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=38323 you are going to have some competition. may the best collector win!
It's true about the O mints being extra difficult, and if you examine the associated price listings, this is evident in the rapid progression from VF onward.
Agreed. Early S mints are tough and obviously the three keys. However, I've found the 00 S, 02 S, 03 S, 05 S, 07 S, and 09 S relatively well represented. All of these have lower mintage figures (some more than 50%) than many New Orleans issues.
:hammer::hammer: you better have an impressive bank account:hammer: still though it is probably as good a place to put money as anything else:kewl:
