Rare Coin Rankings: Any Good Sources Or Websites ?

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by GoldFinger1969, Mar 16, 2021.

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  1. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    A lot at the high end. Several $20s were either tied for the finest known or the finest known
     
    baseball21, Mar 17, 2021
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  3. johnmilton

    johnmilton Well-Known Member

    PCGS "Coin Facts" has survival estimates for everything, but I've found them to be on the low side in my opinion. In other words, I think that there are more survivors than what they estimate.
     
    johnmilton, Mar 17, 2021
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  4. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    I'll post the Excel Spreadsheet I have with rankings when I finish it. I posted the highlights above.

    Better than the rankings for coins are the commentaries from the auction houses -- esp. HA -- that often include comments from Akers (on gold coins like Saints). Most of the time it is from his book(s) and/or an earlier auction catalog (Price, Duckor). But for the Duckor Catalog some of the comments and analysis were specific to that particular sale.

    I've compiled select commentaries from HA on ALL of the 53 Saints (ex-1933) and will post it here or e-mail it to anybody who wants to see it. Since I can't get Aker's books in PDF or smartphone format (nor Roger Burdette's SAINTS book) this is the next best thing.

    For those of you who collect other popular coin types -- like Morgans -- I suspect that there is good commentary on the most famous sales (usually highest or near-highest priced sales) there as well.
     
    GoldFinger1969, Mar 17, 2021
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  5. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    No rarity scale represents absolute hard numbers as such a thing would be impossible. But all rarity scales are based on years of research and gathering data from auction sales, private sales, known collections, museum holdings, etc often going back and covering a hundred to two hundred years. In the book I helped write on Netherlands gold ducats the rarity scale we used covers data back to the early 1800s.

    In other words rarity scales are based on the most complete and documented information that can be gathered.


    These are some examples of other common and well known rarity scales. And there are a great many more rarity scales with many of them if not most of them being specific only to specific coins, with others being universal and applying to any and all coins.


    Hard Times tokens rarity scale

    R1 - common
    R2 - less common
    R3 - Scarce
    R4 - estimated 76-200 specimens survive
    R5 - estimated 31-75 specimens survive
    R6 - estimated 13-30 specimens survive
    R7 - estimated 4-12 specimens survive
    R8 - estimated 2 or 3 specimens survive
    R9 - Unique (only one known)


    Fuld rarity scale for token coins:
    GEORGE FULD RARITY SCALE FOR TOKEN COINS

    RARITY

    ESTIMATED NUMBER IN EXISTENCE

    R - 1 Greater than 5000 (Relatively Common)

    R - 2 2001 to 5000

    R - 3 501 to 2000

    R - 4 201 to 500

    R - 5 76 to 200

    R - 6 21 to 75

    R - 7 11 to 20

    R - 8 5 to 10

    R - 9 2 to 4

    R - 10 1 Only


    The Sheldon Scale

    R-1 Common
    R-2 Not So Common
    R-3 Scarce
    R-4 Very Scarce (population est at 76-200)
    R-5 Rare (31-75)
    R-6 Very Rare (13-30)
    R-7 Extremely rare (4-12)
    R-8 Unique or Nearly So (1,2 or 3)


    With each one of those rarity scales it's self explanatory as to what each R number means - how many coins the R number represents in other words. The Akers rarity scale is no different.


    Yeah, sure it can change, there are exceptions to just about everything. And it has in fact happened. But at the same time you must also understand and realize that those changes are very, very few and far between in the number of times it has happened. And even when it does happen, it typically only involves a single specific date mint combination, not all the coins of the given type. This is why the vast majority of rarity scales are still accurate today.
     
    GDJMSP, Mar 18, 2021
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  6. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    GD, do you have a link to your Ducat book ?
     
    GoldFinger1969, Mar 18, 2021
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  7. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Sorry, but even though I would in no way stand to gain anything personally from it, me posting a link to it would break the forum rules since I was involved in writing it.
     
    GDJMSP, Mar 18, 2021
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  8. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    Me asking you for a link to a book violates TOS ?? Ugg....

    If people here write books or articles, I would think we'd want to celebrate and share that, right ?

    I'll have to do my best Columbo and track it down, I guess. :D
     
    GoldFinger1969, Mar 18, 2021
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  9. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    And we do exactly that ! But if an author post links to buying his book, or even talks about buying his book, in any of the regular forum sections - that breaks the forum rules as advertising of any kind in the regular forum sections is forbidden.

    That said, other can talk about it and post links about it, and recommend it all they want - and that does not break forum rules.
     
    GDJMSP, Mar 18, 2021
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  10. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    I think the days of scouring banks for hoards -- like the European Hoards -- are largely over.

    After WW II, there was so much chaos that banks -- and their depositors -- didn't know WHAT they owned. So you had full-time employees scouring banks for Saints and other valuable coins. It paid to do this up to the 1970's, as I understand it.

    Bank controls were lagging, too. You didn't have good financial reporting, especially for smaller banks and/or banks in 3rd World countries like Central and South America.

    For the most part, those hoards have been discovered. It's possible you have an aging child of someone who purchased directly or got from their parents some valuable coins and these might make their way into the population census, but here you are talking individual coins or just a handful. Not dozens or hundreds or bags of coins.
     
    GoldFinger1969, Mar 18, 2021
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  11. micbraun

    micbraun coindiccted

    It must be this one: https://goldducats.com/
     
    micbraun, Mar 18, 2021
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  12. micbraun

    micbraun coindiccted

    micbraun, Mar 18, 2021
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  13. GoldBug999

    GoldBug999 Well-Known Member

    Goldfinger, I would appreciate getting a copy of your spreadsheet. Thank you!!

    edited - send a PM
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 19, 2021
    GoldBug999, Mar 19, 2021
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  14. Dynoking

    Dynoking Well-Known Member

    I’m not in to registry sets either. I can’t answer your question.
     
    Dynoking, Mar 19, 2021
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  15. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    Volume 2 of the book hasn't been published yet. To the best of my knowledge it's still being written. And those articles, that series of articles rather,(all 3 of which are found or linked to here - https://coinweek.com/world-coins/wo...rt-3-importance-primary-research-numismatics/ ) - are not about the book/s at all. As the title says, the articles are merely about the history of the Netherlands gold ducat.
     
    GDJMSP, Mar 19, 2021
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  16. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    Will have to get the book when I am getting a Ducat for my type collection ! :D
     
    GoldFinger1969, Mar 19, 2021
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  17. micbraun

    micbraun coindiccted

    I stand corrected. It’s the same author though and the book was mentioned in the article:
    Mr. Jasek’s recent book, Gold Ducats of the Netherlands, won the 2016 Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) award for Best Specialized Book on World Coins. Be sure to visit his website at www.goldducats.com.
     
    micbraun, Mar 19, 2021
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