what are the ten rarest U.S. coins with KNOWN mintages?

1907Quarter

what are the coins and their minting # from smallest to greatest?

TheRaven

Do coins like the 1913 V Nickel count? which where make under murky circumstances.

1907Quarter

yep! I would believe that's 5 minted, so it's gotta be near the top!

hughesm1

1849 $20 Lib. 2 minted

hughesm1

1838-O Bust half, 20 minted
1894-S dime, 24 minted
1913 Lib. nickel, 5 minted
1836 reeded edge bust half, 1000 minted
1885 Trade dollar proof, 5 minted
1884 trade dollar proof, 10 minted

Don't know the others off the top of my head.

Merc

Many of the proof Seated Liberty coins from 1837-1847 had mintages of 5 to 10 a year.

mrdq

1870 s half dime... 5 or 10 minted if i remember and only a couple surviving

Sphinx357

does the 1933 $20 count?

mrdq

Valentine says 1 1870 s H10 was struck but I read somewhere else that the mint director had 5 or 10 of them in his possesion as trial strikes. I don't know if the Smithsonian has one. If they did then there'd be 2 that I "know" of. As it stands it might be unique.

1907Quarter

does the 1933 $20 count?

absolutely! along with the known mintage of 1974 alluminum cents!(IF known)

hughesm1

<< <i>does the 1933 $20 count? >>


Weren't somewhere on the order of 10,000 struck and subsequently destroyed?

tmot99

<< <i>1870 s half dime... 5 or 10 minted if i remember and only a couple surviving >>



I think only one known, right?

DrPete

The answer will differ whether or not you include patterns and coins of dubious authorization.

TheRaven

Official mintage of 1933 $20 is 445,500 so that would not count.

The fact that only about 10 or so survived past 1938 does not change the original mintage.

ccr

Proof 1921 Peace Dollars has an estimite of 10 and the Proof 1922 Peace Dollars has an estimite of 15.

ChangeIsGood

The 2004, Wisconsin extra udder quarter.
1 minted and I have it.

majorbigtime

The 1840-1849 original (and restrike, for that matter) proof only half cents have very low (10-20) miontages.

My 1848 is the lowest mintage coin in my collection, but by no means the most valuable.

michael

one-------the sexy and extremely desirable classic head 1834 proof half cent first proof coin of the new mint of the special preparation of the diplomatic proof sets

civil war date proof gold the ultimate pieces of proof gold historical
and with the treasury suspending gold and silver payments many of the biz strike coins in lower ms are scarcer than the proofs and do not even exist in gem which makes the proof civil war gold even more sexier and highly desirable

two-------any proof gold from 1862

three---any proof gold from 1863

four----any proof gold from 1864

five---any proof gold from 1865


six to ten----some 1830's seated lib coins

Conder101

There is no known mintage for the 1870-S half dime. According to the records none were minted, one piece is known to exist.

lordmarcovan

<< <i>1849 $20 Lib. 2 minted >>



Were there two ? I thought it was unique. Isn't in the Smithsonian?

michael

concerning the 1849 twenty

one is in the smithsonian hot stuff and the other is out there somewhere in coin land and one day will show upjust like the fifth lib nick mintage of two

there are some out there struckin copper too and i would not be surprised to find other metals also

DNADave

I bet somebody has a 1964 Peace Dollar. Wouldn't be wise to show it though.

roadrunner

1873cc Assay Commisson coinage. Maybe several to a dozen struck for testing purposes. The 1873cc no arrows quarter and dime probably come from this group.

1842 sd quarter - only 6 proofs struck I believe. And no business strikes of this variety.

roadrunner

carl

Odd that everyone on the forum says 1849 twenty has 2 for mintage. The lastest Whitman Red Book says only 1 minted. Has anyone told Whitman? Speaking of the Red Book on page 375 they list the Top 250 coin prices realized from auctioins since 1994. It's worth checking out for the number one rank coin pulled $7,590,020.
All of the first 10 pulled in the millions. The last place coin was only
$138,000. What I don't understand is the $20 on the $7,590,020.
And how come no one added anything after the dollars like 50cents or something? Anyone here at those auctions? Also mentioned on the forum was the 1913 Liverty nickel. Per the same book on page 115 it says $2,500,000 and at the auction page 375 it went for only $1,840,000.00 I was going to bid on that but couldn't find the auction. Strange thing is that I thought when I was a kid I read there were 6 made, not 5. Is that old age on my part?

Conder101

Carl, Whitman is wrong on the 1849 double eagle there were two in gold and one in copper. One went directly to the Mint collection and later the Smithsonian. The other gold was presented to an official (can't come up with the name right now.). The second gold and the copper specimens do have auction appearances but have not been seen since the 1890's

The reason why years ago it was believed there were six 1913 V nickels was because Eliasberg had a special case made to hold the five coins plus it was known that there was a sixth 1913 nickel in the case (plus two pattern buffalos). The sixth 1913 was a regular buffalo nickel but over time that information was "lost" and it became six 1913 V nickels. The eight coin holder still exists today and is owned by Eric Newman. It is a rather non-descript velvet lined holder. Two rows of four coins with a hinged lid and a closing strap. Not sure about the color, but it is a dark color. (I've only seen a B&W image of the holder.

The reason for the odd $20 on the #1 coin was because since the government officialy denies that the 1933 double eagles were ever released they insisted on being paid the twenty dollar face value of the coin in order to "offically" issue it. Just like they would have received for it in 1933.

tradedollarnut

The reason why years ago it was believed there were six 1913 V nickels was because Eliasberg had a special case made to hold the five coins plus it was known that there was a sixth 1913 nickel in the case (plus two pattern buffalos).

Not Eliasberg ... Samuel Brown. 1913 Liberty Nickel history

Conder101

I was in error when I said Eliasberg and it was a silly error because I knew better (couldn't have been Eliasberg anyway, he never owned all five.) but it wasn't Samuel Brown either (he didn't have the patterns). The person who had the case made was Col Green who owned all five V nickels and had the patterns as well.

(The case is not mentioned in the history of the 1913 nickel linked to earlier.)

carl

Thanks for the information.

mrfred

<<I bet somebody has a 1964 Peace Dollar. Wouldn't be wise to show it though. >>

Agreed.

That is a horse of a different color. The putative mintage is known, or at least attested. Breen says 316,076.
We ought to do a thread on the largest mintage of which none or a very few exist.

tradedollarnut

Article on Reunion

This reunion article states that Samuel Brown displayed the nickels all together in a custom case in 1920.

Conder101

Your right it sounds like Brown had a case made for them. But why would he have made an eight coin holder for five coins? I wonder if there have been two special cases?

michael

the reason why he had a case for eight coins as the other three where die trial strikes in copper of the 1913 buff nicks

and ford kept this case and the 1913 copper diem trial strike of the buff

the 5 1913 lib nicks where shown at the 1920 meeting of the rochester numismatic association in rochester ny 45 miles from north tononanda

MrEureka

All 1875 Proof gold denominations have a reported mintage of 20. The $3's were restruck, the others probably weren't.

1879 Coiled Hair and 1880 Flowing Hair Stellas have mintages of 15. 1880 Coiled's have a mintage of 10, as do 1884 Trade Dollars.