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Seated Liberty coin question
cccoins
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I have been collecting Carson City coins for a few years now. As most of you are aware, Carson City had five different seated denominations: 10c, 20c, 25c, 50c, and $1.00. In reviewing the series, it would appear that if you have the complete Carson City set for a denomination that you have most of the keys for that denomination, excluding proofs.
For Carson City coins, I would order the difficulty of completing each set as follows, if we exclude the ultra rarities:
Quarters (excluding 1873 no arrows) - most difficult
Dollars
Dimes (excluding 1873 no arrows)
Half dollars
Twenty cents (excluding 1876) - least difficult
If you include the ultra rarities, I would rank them as follows:
Dimes - most difficult
Quarters
Twenty cents
Dollars
Half dollars - least difficult
Now for the questions:
- Do you agree with the ordering?
- Does the ordering change when you include other mints?
- Where do half dimes fit into the fix based on difficulty of completing the series?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
For Carson City coins, I would order the difficulty of completing each set as follows, if we exclude the ultra rarities:
Quarters (excluding 1873 no arrows) - most difficult
Dollars
Dimes (excluding 1873 no arrows)
Half dollars
Twenty cents (excluding 1876) - least difficult
If you include the ultra rarities, I would rank them as follows:
Dimes - most difficult
Quarters
Twenty cents
Dollars
Half dollars - least difficult
Now for the questions:
- Do you agree with the ordering?
- Does the ordering change when you include other mints?
- Where do half dimes fit into the fix based on difficulty of completing the series?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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I don't think the half dimes are that tough(no cc's obviously) but there are some good ones, some late date P mints and the 46 , 53-O no arrows, etc
70-s unique coin ?
As to the order, I broadly agree.
Latin American Collection
I surveyed all 4 CC denomination series at the same time over a 10 year period. I always felt the CC dimes were stronger than the CC dollars....still feel that way. The difficulty in finding a decent 74-cc dime pushes the dimes over the top. It's by far the rarest of the regular issue/collectible CC dimes through dollars. I think the larger size and novelty of the CC dollars helped to ensure that more of them survived, despite having the tiniest mintages of the groups. I never let mintage figures sway me. It comes down to how many still exist, not how many were minted.
The discussion may be moot. That's because many collectors focus more on popularity, price, and mintages before #'s extant. And it's certainly hard to be as excited about a coin the size of a dime vs. a monstrous seated dollar....I get that. And it's a fair point. Market demand doesn't just come down to rarity or availability. If you asked us to rank the rarer CC denominations by demand/value/potential....it could be quite different. Then you also have the issue of finding coins that aren't damaged, corroded, or cleaned. That can skew the rankings yet again. The larger size dollars almost invites them to be cleaned.
And the sticky of issue of hoarding vs. total coins extant is hard to evaluate. I'd bet 15-30% (or more) of surviving specimens of the CC dates exist in hoards. A certain date could have plenty of specimens available IF multiple hoards were released. But, until such releases, the coins are not readily available. During the time I was doing my surveys I found that the 70cc-72cc dollars showed up 3X as often as the 1865 or 1866 circs. The 73-cc showed up about as often as the 1865 or 1854. While those ratios might not hold today, it does show how available they were decades ago. Back then I considered the CC dollars as generally over-rated while the CC dimes and quarters (and 70-cc and 74-cc halves) were under-rated.
74-cc dime has 4.7X the mintage of the 73-cc dollar (10,817 vs. 2,300). Most would assume the dollar has to be rarer. Who would guess it's just the opposite with the 74-cc being considerably scarcer. And how confident are we that these reported mintages are even reasonably accurate? R.W. Julian suggests that only 750-1000 of the 73cc dollars made it to circulation with the rest melted. If so, an even higher survival rate applies (ie a very high 12-20%). PCGS pops show the 73-cc (86 pop) comparable to the 1794 dollar (93 pop). The 74-cc dime is at a 49 pop. I've always figured the 74-cc dime to be in the range of 50-75 specimens known. The 1794 and 1873-cc should be approx 2X that. The 70-cc and 72-cc dollars are possibly 2-5X multiples of the 73-cc. The 71-cc is in between them.
Some LSCC researchers have written that 40-60 1873-cc dollars exist. That seems a stretch based on the PCGS+NGC pops, even figuring a 100% resubmission rate. What we do know is that no one has had very many 1874-cc dimes to submit. I find it hard to comprehend that 498 1870-cc halves are on the PCGS pop report, out of 11,578 minted. That's a lot of coins for a low mintage "rarity." For comparison, the 1878-s half has 31 "grading events" at PCGS. And that is often assumed to have a total extant pop of 50 or less. 1878-s half dollar mintage is 12,000....higher than all of those. Mintage smintage.
Always on the lookout for the 1853 H10C Arrows, Dot Below 5 FS-401
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
On a semi-related note, I made a pledge to myself this year that I would focus on learning more about my coins. I am trying to chase down die pairings and provenance when possible. This makes up for the fact that I don't have as much funds as I would like.
My sentiments exactly. Should we discuss how many 1895 business strike Morgans, 1841-O half eagles or 1873-S Liberty Seated Dollars that were reported to have been minted?
Roadrunner:
No, it is not fair. I do not agree with this point. People who collect coins tend to like small objects or else they would not have started collecting coins at any point. There are many collectibles that are notably larger than coins.
Recently, an 1894-S dime sold for nearly $2 million. The most excitement at the Pogue III sale was for dimes. A 1913 Liberty Nickel was the first coin to ever sell at auction for more than $1 million. The highest price paid for a coin at the Newman sale of Nov. 2013 was for a quarter, not for a half dollar or a silver dollar! There is not evidence that sophisticated collectors systematically favor larger coins over smaller coins. Indeed, many favor smaller coins.
The Marvelous Pogue Family Coin Collection, part 16 – Capped Bust Dimes
The Fabulous Eric Newman Collection, part 6: Auction Results for silver U.S. Coins
Newman had monstrous bust/seated quarters and dimes. Were his seated and bust dollars as stupendous? The Pogue dollars have yet to go off. Let's see how those do.
No, it is not fair. I do not agree with this point. People who collect coins tend to like small objects or else they would not have started collecting coins at any point. There are many collectibles that are notably larger than coins.
Let's stick to just coins and not compare them to larger sized collectibles like paintings, antique desks, and rare sports cars. That's apples and oranges. Coins are indeed small to begin with. We could take a poll of the entire coin market and see what coins tend to be the most collected. Would it be Morgan and Peace dollars, Walkers and Franklins, classic or modern half dollar/dollar sized commems, ASE's,.....or Merc/Roosie dimes? Let's not even bring tiny 3c silvers and half dimes into the mix.
So what if the 1913 Lib nickel made it to $1 MILL first in 1996?...a red herring if there ever was one. Any number of larger coins could have won that title had they made it to market first in 1996 (ie Child's 1804 dollar, J-1776, etc.). The Child's 1804 $ fetched over $4 MILL in 1999, over 2-1/2X more than the 1913 Liberty nickel only 3 yrs earlier. Clearly, even today the Eliasberg 1913 Liberty nickel is not at the top of the totem pole. And I am sort of surprised that the best 1894-s dime is "only" worth $2 MILL today. That seems quite low for what it is. If that were a dollar sized coin it would bring a much higher price.
You introduced the notion of "sophisticated" collectors to this discussion. Nowhere did I mention such a thing. I merely mentioned "coins" and "collectors." That to me means in any setting, by any potential owner, in any price range. A celebrity or investor owning a major rarity doesn't make them a "sophisticated" collector. In any case I'm more interested in 99% of the coin hobby...not the top 1%. And from where I've sat over the past 50 years, larger gold and silver coins do seem to be more popular. Credit the revival of the US coin market in the 1970's (besides gold and silver prices rising) with the various silver dollar hoards that hit the market, drastically increasing their popularity and availability.
The infatuation with the smallish Lincoln cent peaked in 1964. It's never regained that same stature. I'm not making light of people that collect or cherish smaller coins. All I did was state that over the entire US coin market, that size does matter. It always has. Even in junk 90% circ silver, the half dollars (and silver dollars) bring more of a premium than dimes and quarters.
Roadrunner: "The infatuation with the smallish Lincoln cent peaked in 1964. It's never regained that same stature."
Lincolns are still among the most popular of all coins. If there were fewer than twenty-five 1909-S VDB Lincolns in existence, rather than tens of thousands, each would be worth more than most of the large coins and patterns that Roadrunner mentioned above.
Roadrunner: "Let's stick to just coins and not compare them to larger sized collectibles like paintings, antique desks, and rare sports cars. That's apples and oranges. Coins are indeed small to begin with."
Is it fair to toss my main point? People who spend substantial sums on rare coins are extremely interested in very small objects. Compared to an antique desk, a silver dollar really is not much larger than a dime.
Roadrunner: "We could take a poll of the entire coin market and see what coins tend to be the most collected. Would it be Morgan and Peace dollars, Walkers and Franklins, classic or modern half dollar/dollar sized commems, ASE's,.....or Merc/Roosie dimes?"
There are Morgans, Walkers and generic Saints around than there are people who are interested in collecting them. Therefore, they are heavily marketed to the general public, pushed on to buyers who know little, if anything, about rare coins. Invariably, a small % of such buyers will become serious collectors. But, most of the buyers of Morgans, Walkers and generic Saints are not interested in collecting coins or are uninterested in learning about rare coins.
Roadrunner: "And I am sort of surprised that the best 1894-s dime is "only" worth $2 MILL today."
That 1894-S dime brought almost $2 million after market levels recently dropped 10% to 20%.
Market Realities & Gold in FUN Platinum Night
Roadrunner: "If that were a dollar sized coin it would bring a much higher price."
The 1870-S silver dollar and the 1894-S dime are equally rare. An 1870-S silver dollar has never sold for as much as $1.2 million at auction. The record for one is $1,092,500. I realize that one of the three top 1870-S dollars would realize far more than $1 million if auctioned this month. Even so, it seems that the nine surviving 1894-S dimes are worth a lot more in total than the nine surviving 1870-S silver dollars. The 1804 dollar is a special case because of a variety of historical circumstances, promotions and rumors.
Phenomenal Excitement for an 1870-S dollar
Roadrunner:The Child's 1804 $ fetched over $4 MILL in 1999, over 2-1/2X more than the 1913 Liberty nickel only 3 yrs earlier. Clearly, even today the Eliasberg 1913 Liberty nickel is not at the top of the totem pole"
The Eliasberg 1913 Liberty Nickel sold privately for $5 million or more in 2007. The Childs coin is the only 1804 dollar to sell for more than $4 million. In August 1999, a moderate price for it would have been considerably less than 4.14; that price was strong. Also, the Childs 1804 is of higher quality than the Eliasberg 1913 nickel.
1804 Silver Dollar Sells for $3.88 million
The buyer of the Childs 1804 dollar in 1999, the Pogue family, also collected half dimes and dimes. There are not bust dimes for which less than ten are privately owned. If there were, these dimes would be worth millions, too. Several 1804 dollars are in museums.
The Marvelous Pogue Family Coin Collection, part 16 – Capped Bust Dimes
I'd never attempt a series.
Interesting question and I wouldn't be so quick to hand the torch to the dimes. Let's examine closer:
The finest 1870-S (my coin) is appraised at $2.5M. The second finest is now for sale at just under $2M. The 3rd finest sold for just under $1.5M the last time it changed hands. That's $6M
The finest 1894-S just sold for just under $2M. The third finest sold a few years back for around $1.6M. The second finest is in the Simpson collection and is probably valued right between those two sales. That's $5.4M
The two worst dimes and two worst dollars are pretty low grade or damaged....not much value difference for quality there and at just over six figures they're not gonna change the respective total difference much. So that leaves the middle four coins of each. Just to make up the difference above the dimes would have to average $150k more each. I suppose that's possible considering their condition is in the 60-63 range vs VF-EF range. I'd say a PR61 1894-S dime is a $600k coin and a VF 1870-S is a $450k coin so yah, the total is probably about equal.
But "a lot more in total"? I just don't see it.