Short article: Official mintage versus coins actually available.

RogerB

Insider2

Roger, Where did this come from?

RogerB

Me. Data collection and analysis processes are used to determine maximum survival. Destruction & survival data are calculable for each action such as coining, Special Assay, and Annual Assay Commission. (Coining data is the least important because defective pieces are not counted as coins.)

CaptHenway

I have always assumed that in any calendar year the Mint produced random production runs which, when they were all added together at the end of the year, gave a whole number of deliverable coins that ended in anything from 001 to 999, or even 000 if that is what it happened to be. From this random number, let's pick 762 as an example, they might deduct 178 pieces as real-time test pieces (to insure quality) or annual assay pieces.

If the gross mintage was 318,762 and the net mintage was 318,584, they would bag up (or barrel up in some early years) round amounts of face value that made it easier on the bookkeeper. $1,000 was a nice round number, so they would bag up 1,000 silver dollars or 2,000 half dollars or 4,000 quarter dollars or 10,000 dimes. If our 318,762 coins were dollars or halves then 318,000 of them would get bagged and delivered, with the remainder carried over on the bullion accounts until the new calendar year. If they were quarters then 316,000 would get bagged and reported. If they were dimes, then 310,000 would get bagged and reported.

Of course the bagging and reporting and shipping of whole bags would go on throughout the year, with the odds and ends simply held until the next time that denomination was struck. If that denomination was not struck again in that calendar year, then the odds and ends could be carried into the next year as bullion, and then transformed into coins and co-mingled with the next years production. One original bags of 1892-S dollars was found to contain a few dozen original BU 1893-S dollars.

Catbert

Thanks for the education and perspective. It's too bad to not have any way to measure coins that were melted by the public over the decades and how this impacted absolute rarity.

ricko

Interesting...thanks Roger.... I never really considered such numbers to be absolute....too many random possibilities.... There were NO 1933 Saints issued... until we found out that, indeed there were... and there are likely more out there (beyond the Farouk coin). The same goes for the 64D Peace Dollar....Consider the mint figures to be 'ball park' estimates and proceed accordingly. Cheers, RickO

RogerB

RE: "Of course the bagging and reporting and shipping of whole bags would go on throughout the year, with the odds and ends simply held until the next time that denomination was struck."

This was evidently normal practice --- including in 1932-33 with double eagles.