More POP Reports on Auctions

SilverDollarMan

Not being a dealer, nor a seller, i want to let the dealers know that i, myself, only buy pcgs or ngc coins that are really good deals or ones that the seller has supplied the population reports for the coin.
Thx

kieferscoins

Ok.

Cameron Kiefer

jdimmick

If you buy based on population report information alone, I think you are in for some let downs in the future!

kieferscoins

I agree.

Cameron Kiefer

SilverDollarMan

OK, i'll take the "bait", hehe. Plz, i want 2 learn, can u tell me why?
Thx

btw i'm a noob, i try 2 buy the highest grade and the lowest population coins....but still stay within Red Book prices. I was simply saying, i'm more likely to buy a coin if everybody and his brother don't own one too, LOL? I mean a ms-64, w/ a population of 1000's wouldn't turn me on!
thx again

DennisH

Population reports and mintage figures both need to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt.

Mintage figures aren't always accurate and, expecially in the case of Morgan dollars, hundreds of millions of coins were melted by the government during World Wars I and II alone, and no records were kept of which dates were melted.

Population reports are skewed in many ways, one of which being that coins which have sufficient value to be certified tend to be sent in for grading, while those that don't aren't sent in.

The key point to remember is, neither the population reports nor the mintage figures have anything to do with the number of coins that actually survive.

Here's a couple of examples:

The Red Book stated mintage for the 1921-S is over 21 million coins, while the 1885-CC is just 228,000. Total PCGS population alone for the 1921-S is less than 5,800 in all grades combined, while it's over 14,000 for the 1885-CC.

Does this mean should should load up on 1921-S because they haven't graded nearly as many? I would suggest you not, because they still exist in large quantities.

Should you rush out and load up on 1885-CC because the mintage was tiny? Well maybe not either, because there are plenty of them to go around. Out of that original mintage of 228,000 more than 148,000 were discovered by the government to still be in Treasury vaults in the 1960s -- which were then sold to the public.

Here's one more example: The 1880 gold $1 has a mintage of just 1,636... a sexy low number to be sure. Unfortunately, people at the time recognized this ultra-low mintage and virtually the entire mintage was saved. Today, it's easier to find an MS66 example than it is an XF example. And as the modest Red Book prices reflect, the number of examples that are available exceeds the number of people who collect them.

SilverDollarMan

Good Read, thanks alot, DennisH! Very informative.
Always figured a unvaluable coin wouldn't be graded, so therefore a low pop report would mean something!