Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1865387, member: 112&quot;]There are two kinds of rarity - absolute rarity and conditional rarity.</p><p><br /></p><p>Absolute rarity applies the total number of coins of a given type that are know to exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>Conditional rarity applies to the number of coins known to exist in a given grade.</p><p><br /></p><p>The URS deals with absolute rarity. The population reports of the TPGs, (and to a lesser degree combined with the known census of raw examples), deal with conditional rarity. Neither of these numbers has anything to do with known mintage numbers and mintage numbers do not have any bearing on the absolute rarity of a given coin. The only thing that determines absolute rarity is the number of coins known to still exist. And the number known to still exist is never, or almost never, a factual or hard number. Rather the number is stated as a range such as 250 to 500 for example. And that number is determined by documented market records over a long period of time.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, in other words a given coin may be known to have had a mintage of 2 million coins, but in the present day there are only 250 to 500 known examples of that given coin that still exist. That&#039;s why mintage doesn&#039;t matter.</p><p><br /></p><p>Conditional rarity on the other hand may matter, or not matter. For example there may only be 25 examples of a given coin in MS64. But there may be hundreds of thousands of examples graded lower than that, and thousands graded higher than that. Which if the case the coin obviously is not conditionally rare. But, if the coin is graded MS64 and there are only 3 graded higher the the coin is conditionally rare. So conditional rarity may or may not matter. It is also important to realize that population numbers are not hard numbers either, they are only estimates. The few studies done on population numbers indicate that they may be off by as much as 20%, and in some case more, others less.</p><p><br /></p><p>And sometimes a coin can be conditionally rare and absolutely rare at the same time. But as a collector we must always know the difference and always be aware of it. For rarity, combined with condition (grade) and popularity is what determines the value of any given coin. And it is also very important for collectors to realize that popularity is very often the single most important factor there is when it comes to determining the value of a given coin. For a coin may not be absolutely rare by any description, nor be conditionally rare by any description, and yet because that coin has tremendous popularity it is still very valuable in dollar terms.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bottom line absolute rarity usually trumps conditional rarity. But popularity can trump them both. Combine all three in one coin and you have something that few will ever be able to afford.</p><p><br /></p><p>edit - Forgot to mention that there are many different rarity scales that are used when describing different kinds of coins or even tokens. The URS is typically only applied when talking about US coins for example. Some rarity scales only apply the the coins of a given country, or a certain type of coin from that given country. But not all coin types even have a rarity scale because no one took the time to study them well enough to develop one.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in