Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="iPen, post: 2445007, member: 69760"]At first, I may have easily resorted to looking at the absolute mintage figures (assuming that they are accurate, e.g. not melted down, not destroyed from circulation, homogeneous condition, non-speculative pricing, etc.). However, with a more granular look at what the mintage figures actually means to buyers and sellers, the concept of rare appears to be more complex than simply looking at the mintage figures - enter demand. For instance, you can be an "official" private mint working out of your garage with very crude instruments and tools to strike a limited edition of 1; but, if no one wants it, then is it truly rare? Absolutely, sure - there's only one in the world, but practically, if no one really wants it when there are so many different offerings at competitive prices, then that one coin is "easily" available to anyone who actually wants it. In contrast, if the US Mint were to release only 1 million ASE 1 oz BU rounds for the whole of 2017, then isn't that 1 million round mintage rare, if not extremely rare? In 2015, the US Mint produced 47 million ASE 1 oz BU rounds, while their lowest production year for the same strike type was in 1996 with only approximately 3.6 million rounds. If only 1 million were produced, then you'd be hard-pressed to get your hands on one from the US Mint, save for buying from middle man services for exorbitant prices. They'd technically still be available, but practically the high prices would be a barrier to many if not most would-be buyers. With those scenarios in mind, wouldn't it be appropriate to define what's "rare" as a ratio of mintage to number of collectors seeking to buy that particular coin, at which point prices move beyond 3 standard deviations above the average price for the same design type from past years? I won't get into the math part, but looking at only the ratio figure, if there are 1 million coins for 1 million collectors of that coin, then everyone gets that coin (i.e. not "rare"). If it's 10:1, then it's fairly common. However, if it's 1:10 or 1 coin for every 10 collectors seeking that coin, then at least in theory, you'll have quite a bit of competition to beat - if the price gets too high, it becomes impractical to buy and it may as well not be available at all, since you can't/won't actually own that coin - making the coin extremely rare for "most" people. The trouble is, it's difficult to calculate the collector base for a given coin. For instance, if there's a mintage of only 100,000 for an early 20th century silver Brazilian coin, how do I figure out how rare that coin really is? I could use market signals such as price, which may seem logical and practical, but I've noticed that many coins are expensive because of their low mintage while lacking demand altogether. The converse is often true, too, especially for modern coins - despite a relatively low mintage, some countries' silver rounds sell out fast at a price competitive with their far more numerous US silver eagle counterpart. So, is there a rule of thumb collector base figure that you'd say comprise certain type collectors? For example, are there generally 10 million active world silver coin collectors/buyers? Are there 40 million active US silver eagle collectors/buyers for any given coin year? Of course, there are slews of different type collectors, but if there's a general and quick but usually accurate figure I can use, I'd like to figure out which coins I have and want to buy are "actually" rare. I could use the Coin World subscription base, which is less than 100,000, but that figure is probably less than the actual collector base, and may comprise mostly of US and European collectors. Does anyone have an educated guess? Thanks in advance and thanks for your patience in this long thread![/QUOTE]

Create my FREE Account!

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches