Rare Coin Rankings: Any Good Sources Or Websites ?

I was re-reading my HANDBOOK OF 20th CENTURY GOLD COINS 1907-33 by Akers and it has a couple of Rarity Rankings in the appendix. One for total Mint State (MS60 and up) coins out there, the other for Mint State 65 and higher.

Does anybody know of a good source for up-to-date rarity indices for Saints and/or Morgans by year and/or mintmark? Maybe they exist, maybe they don't, I don't know. I figure that for coins that are popular with collectors where there are lots of coins to collect that a ranking of difficulty/rarity would be available, either by someone's estimate of difficulty or a hard formula.

Do the registry rankings kind of incorporate rarity in so far as you get more points for hard-to-get coins in high grade condition, right (I'm not a registry player so I'm guessing here) ?

 

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Population reports and then just guess at the number of cross overs and retries. When looked at against each other they're a pretty good indication of the harder to find ones and just assume any grade with a big jump in price for the next one up is artificially inflated

Both are much to common to do anything but guesstimate

 

That's fine for me, I liked the Indian Head and Saint-Gaudens rankings in Akers books, he pretty much based it on total number of coins for the grade(s).

I thought on the HA archives I came across some scale or ranking involving an R-something. Wish I had saved it, maybe I can find it again.

 

Yes there's plenty of ranking systems and they're all basically based on the population reports. The R is just telling you a range of what is there, for early copper sure that would hold more weight with a lot of raw ones out there, for Saints and Morgans just look at the pops

 

But with all the double-counting, can you really guestimate the range of the population size ?

 

Yes. You look at it against the others. That's the point.

Then if you really want to dig in on one specially, you look at listings and sales history and see what comes up and deduct from there

 

I found that R-thing:

1909 $20 MS65 PCGS. The 1909-P is a highly respected condition rarity in the Saint-Gaudens series, rated as an R.8 by Akers in MS65 (1990).

What is the commentary saying...."R.8" ? Is that R and 0.8 or R and 8 ?? Does anybody know what this numerical stuff means ?

 

You can throw that all out that window from 1990, it means nothing now

 

They're on my TO BUY list. I'm working through inventory as I speak.

I guess what you and BB21 are saying is what I have deduced....it's pretty much an informal ranking system. I thought there might be something more hard and quantified, that why that "R" scale thing confused me.

Thanks again !

 

Well, he doesn't explain it in the book's early sections so maybe it was talked about elsewhere. That was before my time.

I suspect based on the tables at the back (for overall MS and MS65 & Greater) he just segmented the coins. As I typed above, the "R" and "0.8" or "8" is what confused me. I thought it might be some scale known to hard-core collectors.

 

If a hoard is found, and it's a decent % of the existing total, then absolute rarity can change, right ?

That's what happened with the SSCA and the 1857-S Liberty DE.

 

FWIW....I ranked all of the Saints (all 54 non-proof types, including the UHR and 1933) by quintiles (10 or 11 coins in each quintile).

Looks like 31 of the 54 maintained the same quintile ranking. 23 of them changed; 12 decreased in difficulty, 11 more difficult in the MS65 or higher listing.

 

Yes and it has and does. More than one Morgan hoards have been found since 1990 and Saddle Ridge changed some gold numbers, as just one example. Things always change over time

 

On that note the 1990 stats may be more accurate than the latest data. Why? Think of the crack outs and regrading that has accrued since 1990. The 1990 population numbers should be a lower number.

 

I think you will find rarity statistics on the PCGS web sites coin facts pages. How often are they updated? I couldn’t say, but it would be interesting to compare them to the information in Mr Akers book. If you do this would you kindly share your findings on this thread? I think it would be an interesting comparison.

 

I'm not a registry guy, but don't the "points" for various coins take into account rarity and/or price ?

 

It's a project I am going to work on over time for some of my coins. But if you go too far back the presence of hoards HUGELY changes the game, as BB21 said above.

 

What numbers changed from Saddle Ridge ?

I'll scan for those Morgan hoards, the gold hoards seem to get more publicity with the exception of the Redfield Hoard.