Destroyed 1916?D? Mercury?

The original mintage of a coin is largely meaningless; what matters is survival rate. A good albeit extreme example of this was the 1903-O Morgan prior to the GSA hoard. Even with its original mintage of well over four million, it was significantly more scarce and valuable than the 93-S with its mintage of just 100k, or approximately 45 03-O coins minted for each 93-S.

Supply and demand also come into play and is why people pay such prices. Both the S VDB and 16-D are well known and very popular, which only helps to drive prices up regardless of the fact that neither is genuinely rare by any stretch of the imagination. At any hour of the day, seven days per week and 365 per year there are near countless examples of each available for sale. Aside from condition rarity, anyone who wants either can easily have one and isn’t something that can be said for truly rare coins.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.