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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GoldFinger1969, post: 26205067, member: 73489&quot;]<i>...Among these coins,<b> the single 1870-CC eagle among the Fairmonts that graded PCGS G-6 stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. </b>It seems inconceivable that the only Carson City coin in the Fairmont hoard with a grade this low would also be a leading rarity - rather, I suspect, the only 1870-CC eagle in the Fairmont hoard also happened to be a low-grade coin. Surely, if there is one low-grade 1870-CC Fairmont eagle, there must also be dozens, or even hundreds, of similarly low-grade Fairmonts for the more common issues.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>Accordingly, one approach to estimating the number of ungraded Fairmonts is to compare the low end of the grade distribution for Fairmonts with the corresponding tail of the distribution for all PCGS-graded coins, as I did in the third article in this series. The numbers are uncomfortably soft, but <b>various analyses consistently suggest that the missing low-grade tail of the Fairmont distribution is perhaps 5% - 10% of the total.</b></i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>There is, in fact, little incentive to have worn common-date gold coins graded, Fairmont or otherwise – their numismatic value exceeds their bullion value only slightly, and the difference is, oftentimes, comparable to the grading cost. Indeed, <b><span style="color: #0000ff">I think it is likely that some ungraded Fairmont coins have been consigned directly to SBG’s Precious Metals (i.e., bullion) sales during the past several years.</span> </b>For example, in mid-2020, SBG sold several hundred ungraded common-date half eagles in their Precious Metals sales, including 115 moderately-worn 1895 $5 coins. About the same time in mid-2020, my time series show that PCGS graded almost 1,700 non-pedigreed Fairmont 1895 $5 coins. It is tempting to connect the two events: the better coins were sent to PCGS for grading, and the numismatically less attractive coins (about 7% of the total) were consigned directly to the bullion sales.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>However, <b>I tend to discount stories that truly large numbers of badly worn and/or damaged Fairmont coins have been culled and (perhaps) melted.</b> The reason is that, if anything, the Fairmont hoard seems to be characterized by too few examples of rarities, relative to the more common dates. This feature would disappear in the face of wholesale culling of common-date coins.&quot;</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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