Any Idea How Many 1955 DDO Cents Made/Exist?

I checked the PCGS and NGC census and the combined total across all grades was 7,740. That's actually a little higher than I expected considering what they sell for.

Anyway, any idea how many of them are out there? Just looking for a rough estimate cause I know it's impossible to know for sure. It was obviously only one die that created all of them. How long did a die last in those days (under normal circumstances)? Did anyone at the Mint notice the error at some point during production? Did they change the die sooner than they normally would have?

I'm just curious about the figures and history.

 

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If I remember right it was about four hours of production before an inspector spotted it. They did pull the die but opted to release what was already produced.

 

As the story goes, per Dave Bowers, there was a hurricane coming and they decided to just let the coins go.

 

This makes me wonder if problem coins (detail grade coins) show in the census. I would think that many problem coins were sent in just to get them in a holder.
We would have to guess how many have been cracked out and sent back in.
Next we would have to guess how many are raw in collections.

 

At 150 coins/minute that's 36,000 strikes.

 

How much do you think the sales price would be for an original Mint bag of 1955 cents?

Chris

 

Jim Ruddy bought his first two for 25c each from a man who got them from inside a pack of vending machine cigarettes. The vending machine took quarters and the cigs were 23c.

 

if your math is near correct then it would mean that 36000x4hrs=144000 or are are you saying 240minsx150pm=36000???

 

and i only say that to say this if there are actually only 36-45k of the 55ddo's then they should be worth way more then they say..

 

I remember reading somewhere that the estimate is about 24,000, but of course cannot recall where.

Not really... survival numbers, supply, and demand are the main drivers for most any coins price/value. If people were lining up to pay more, don't you think prices would reflect that?

 

And I would guess that survival numbers are relatively high, because it's a thing someone will immediately see and pick out of circulation.

 

And another story exists that claimed they were given as 2 cents change in cigarette packs in the northeast!

 

It is estimated that 40,000 of these coins were minted, all during one night shift at the Philadelphia Mint.[2] Roughly 20,000-24,000[3] of the pennies were introduced into circulation after the minting error.

 

They were originally found in New England, and many were distributed in cigarette packs in vending machines. The price of the cigarettes was 23 cents per pack, and two pennies were included to even up the price to the quarter required to buy from the machine.[4]

The 1955 doubled die is one of the most famous die varieties in US coinage.[according to whom?] Very few exist today in totally mint condition, as almost all were discovered while in circulation. Over the years, many counterfeits of this coin have surfaced. It is advised for collectors to seek expert opinion before auctioning for these coins if not certified by one of the top numismatic certification companies

 

that means there should be a significant price increase

 

What is "that"? If you think there should be such a "significant price increase", please explain why.

 

Really where to begin, as it was if there was 24k-35k produced

 

Paul, no way of really knowing, but I would think just the opposite. Many were lost, damaged, destroyed and just thrown out. How often do people "look" at pennies.

 

Hurricane Connie struck NC coast on or about august 13...

 

Mintage has nothing to do with price/value, Leeroy....

Again, the main factors are supply, demand, and survival numbers. Perhaps a better example could be used, but let's consider the 1903-O Morgan pre-1960's. Even with a mintage of nearly 4.5 million iirc, it was considered to be the great rarity of the series due to the simple fact that, at that time, precious few we known to have survived. Were those offering to pay then huge sums of money to own one fools for doing so? Should they instead have insisted they pay (even IF an example could've been found) the same as a plentiful date with comparable mintage even though others (demand) would have been giddy to pay more? This, of course, changed when the bags were released, but still should help prove the point that basing a value assumption solely upon mintage is folly.

Think of the hundreds of thousands of 1957 Chevy Bel-Airs that were originally produced and how many survive today; is their present day value based upon how many rolled off the line in 1957, or how many survive, how many are available for sale, and how many people are in the market to purchase one? There were 3-4 57's made (IIRC) for each Chevette GM made in 1983 (or so Google tells me), so does this mean the oh-so-lovely "scooter" is worth 3-4 times the Bel-Air?

I can promise you that IF 36,000 (or 24,000 or whatever the original mintage actually was) 55 DDOs existed today, values would go down, not up.