Came upon the following description of a coin for sale this morning: "EXTREMELY VERY VERY RARE 17(xx) FLOWING HAIR LARGE CENT......." Besides the somewhat unusual use of the adverbs EXTREMELY and VERY together, it got me thinking, just what will sellers come up next in order to describe and promote the rarity of their coins.....?? - Excruciatingly Rare ?? - Unbelievably Rare ?? - Painfully Rare ?? geez !! Whatever happened to just 'very scarce', or 'very rare'...... Can you come up with any better, more imaginative ways to describe a rare coin??
Adjectives mean nothing to collectors unless they are official grades, like extremely fine or very good. All the "verys" in front of a word do nothing for me. Then there's the whole "scarce" vs. "rare" thing. Normally, "rare" means there are fewer known than "scarce" in numismatics. How strong demand is for a date or series is not factored in. Then there are rarity scales, but those are kind of useless as are population reports. Why? They don't factor in people resubmitting coins. And in Economics, "scarce" means there are more people looking for an item than there are items available, so here demand kicks in. "Rare" means there aren't many available, but if there are only 3 total items and only one person wants one, despite being rare the item is not scarce. So, it depends in what context you are using it. ~Joe C.
Rarity scales aren't supposed to factor in resubmissions and you can find examples of more coins in a population because of that than a rarity scale claims. Rarity scales at the end of the day are just educated guesses as very few things are actually rare enough to have a definitive answer
Yes, I like that one too. As though that fact alone - the fact that he has never seen one - would suffice to make a coin extremely rare....!
Another of my favorites are when someone posts a coin that’s damaged and they claim it’s an error. “I guarantee you’ll never find one like this in a slab!”
Which is exactly why they are useless, as I already stated. Not really sure the purpose of your comment since I addressed that.
I like Unique, but unfortunately it is used incorrectly most of the time. There can only be one for something to be Unique. There were two 1849 Double Eagles struck, which means it is not unique, but one is missing. So is it unique now?
My favorite adjective for rarity is "exceedingly rare", often seen in auction catalogs. Can a coin be too rare? Only if it's priced accordingly and I really want it. The most objective way to describe rarity is with a published rarity number. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of these rarity scales. See below. Cal -------------------------------------------------------- Sheldon scale: U - Unique R8 - 2 - 3 known R7 - 4 - 12 known R6 - 13 - 30 known R5 - 31 - 75 known R4 - 76 - 200 known R3 - 201 - 500 known R2 - 501 - 1250 known R1 - more than 1250 known Scale used in U.S. Pattern Coins, 10th ed. and some earlier, by J. H. Judd: It's the same as the Sheldon scale but with high and low divisions of R7 and R6. U - Unique R8 - 2 - 3 known High R7 - 4 - 6 known Low R7 - 7 - 12 known High R6 - 13 - 20 known Low R6 - 21 - 30 known R5 - 31 - 75 known R4 - 76 - 200 known R3 - 201 - 500 known R2 - 501 - 1250 known R1 - more than 1250 known Scale used in American Half Cents by Cohen. Based, in part, on the Sheldon scale. R8 - fewer than 4 known R7 - 4 - 12 known R6 - 13 - 30 known R5 - 31 - 75 known R4 - 76 - 200 known R3 - Scarce R2 - Not so common R1 - Common Scale used in English Silver Coins R7 - only 1 or 2 examples known R6 - 3 - 4 examples known R5 - 5 - 10 examples known R4 - 11 - 20 examples known R3 - Extremely Rare R2 - Very Rare R - Rare S - Scarce N - Normal, neither scarce nor common C - Common C2 - Very Common C3 - Extremely Common
Kinda. BUT - every coin is unique, no two of them are ever exactly alike. Even if billions are minted, no two are exactly alike. Nor can they be.
One correction to your listing of the Sheldon scale, "known" is not used for R-1 thru R-4. They are listed as "estimated" because once you get past R-5 there are too many to really count "known" specimens. There are too many of them and they change hands too often. It becomes very difficult when you see one to know if it is one you have seen before. It is a heck of a lot easier to track known specimens when you are dealing with less than 75 pieces
In the field of ancient numismatics, it's actually common to have rare coins, even those that are not published in any reference. Almost all ancient coin collectors have at least one coin in their collection that is not listed in any of the standard references and which does not appear elsewhere at any of the online databases.
