interesting exercise

Gazes

The first time I went to a coin show, I was amazed how many coins were there! It educated me that they all can't be rare. This was pre-internet so it was a shock to see Morgan dollar after morgan dollar and so on. Now with the internet, I decided to check each coin in my collection on collectors.com I wasn't really interested in prices but simply how rare the coin was. On any particular date---could I find multiple coins of the date? Could I find multiple coins of the date in my grade or higher? I found that it gave me a good idea of how rare some of my coins are. Yes---I could just look up the PCGS population but one coin can have a population of 15 and you can find 4 for sale and another coin can have the same population and not have any for sale. I am sure many others have thought of doing this with their collection but just thought I would mention it. Thanks

jonruns

I always consult PCGSCoinFacts.com...it provides a Survival Estimate for every date/mint...also allows you to rank order the relative rarity of a coin by type and series...PCGS population numbers can be significantly inflated by resubmissions and therefore are directional but not really accurate...

Sonorandesertrat

The most popular series of coins are popular because there are enough of them for dealers to promote and for collectors of reasonable means to collect. Coins like Morgan dollars, Capped Bust half dollars, Walkers, Lincoln cents, etc. are all common enough that lots of them can be found at any meaningful coin show. All have some more expensive issues ('keys'), but even these can usually be found within a year or so (ignoring tough varieties or condition rarities).

Spend time looking at dealer inventories, particularly those of generalist dealers like B & M shops. What they cannot seem to carry in stock is what is scarce to rare.

LindeDad

Just a word of warning most of the key dates seems to be in the dealer’s inventory.Don't let your wallet get too wrapped around them.

ricko

I used to use a rule of thumb (my thumb) that if I could not find a particular coin (and grade) at

ten consecutive shows, it was at least scarce - now that could also mean much in demand so that

dealers flipped them as soon as they acquired them... worked for me. Cheers, RickO