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Message:: [QUOTE="900fine, post: 1389470, member: 6036"]I agree. That's one reason why I avoid the word "rare" in describing 20th century US; perhaps even the word "scarce" is too generous. The key is supply AND demand; as pointed out earlier by several, demand can be very high even for coins with "high" mintages. A classic case - the 1909-S VDB 1c, with mintage of 484,000. I suppose the surviving population is many tens of thousands. That makes it an r.1 "rarity factor" - in the "most common" category. Every auction has stacks of 'em... and yet, it's quite pricey. In contrast, I recently sold the rarest coin we've ever owned - a pattern with a population of FOUR. That makes it rarer than a 1913 "V" nickel, and 3 times rarer than an 1804 dollar - either of which sell for 1,000 times more money. Why would the more "common" coin sell for 1000x more ? Because there is so much more interest.[/QUOTE]