Are there any coin(s) with a somewhat high original mintage that are considered scarce today?
braddick
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The "what is your lowest mintage coin?" got me to thinking if there are any coins today that are somewhat difficult to locate yet had an original mintage that is considered somewhat high. For example, the 1964 Peace dollar. Mintage of 300,000 yet do any exist today? OK, that one's a bit comical- so come up with a real-life example.
Oh, and grade rarity doesn't count, for this thread at least.
peacockcoins
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Lots of coins that suffered from excessive melting. Late St. Gaudens double eagles and capped bust half eagles come quickly to mind but I'm sure there are plenty of others.
Agree with @Nap. The 1933 had a mintage of 445,500. Even the 27-D had a mintage of 180,000. Neither of those is high, but given the surviving populations of ~13 and ~9, that's a lot of attrition.
A lot of gold coins were melted in the early 1930's and silver coins melted in 1979-80. No real records were kept. Mintage figures could be misleading.
According to our host 60k minted only 600 graded
Knowledge is power. Years ago, and if someone has the title, please add it, I read a book on Morgan Dollars, and the short version is that a dealer, after the great melt of 1979 / 1980, empirically determined that some "common" coins had become "rare" based on the inability to buy basically anything at "published" prices. He secretly upped his buying price, and even at 2x 3x 5x listed prices, he could not find much of anything for particular dates. He made a lot of money "finding" what was the new rarities.
Not real example: Say coin A had a mintage of 2m and coin B had a mintage of 50M. Everyone knows coin A is the keeper. When silver runs up high, all the dreck gets melted. Then it is the commons, uncirculated, that get melted. During the 79 melt, bags of uncirculated coins were sent to melt, since they were common dates. Couple that with the 2nd melt a few years ago, and more and more commons, even uncirculated, get melted. So, No one melts coin A, and everyone melts coin B, and eventually almost all of B is melted, and none of A, so the SURVIVING population of coins may be Coin A: 800,000 and coin B, 300,000, but EVERYONE knows coin A is the "rare" coin.
One dealer I knew had amassed 1/4 of the total mintage of a coin. It was not really on anyone's radar. He agonized over what to do, when round 2 of the silver melt came up. We will say it was a $10 coin, but with silver at $50, the melt was $25, and he had gone through the aftermath of silver melt round 1, and the crashing of inventory value. He sent all of it to melt.
Should silver hit $50 again (or gold), truck loads of those $100 or $1000 bags of US 90%, foreigns, etc. will head off to melt. How many 1932-D quarters will be in the melt, compared to 1964-D's.
The last melt, I was guilty. I took a bunch of albums and rolls to the local smelter. Silver was around $45 at that time. For US 90%, they were paying 95%, IIRC, of melt value. I cleared maybe 15 albums of Washingtons, Franklins, Kennedys, Roosevelts, Mercs, nothing fancy, but I kept the keys from each album, along with a hundred or so Morgans and Peace Dollars. They weighed them, paid for them, and you could watch them being taken back to the melting area, and within 10 minutes, they were in the pots. A lot of FRanklin MInt, foreigns, silverware, etc. went also, but that stuff was melted and then assayed before payment. They even took about $50 in War Nickels, and a small bag of 40% Kennedy's, though, IIRC, those came in around 92% of melt.
At that time, the smelter was paying more than the dealers, as the dealers were just taking the stuff across town to the smelter anyway, and I thought it was neat to watch. The smelter did not check for dates, Mint Marks, DDO;s etc., it all went to the pot.
I still have some of the "keys" left, but I would have been $$ ahead to have melted them, based on their condition, as I could buy them back for less than what I could have melted them for a few years ago.
I GUARANTEE that there are a boatload of dealers who will melt metric tons of coins, as they will not get stuck a 3rd time, seeing silver go to $50, sitting on their common stuff, and watch it crash again.
The 1964-D dollar does not count - it was never released, and the quantity minted is an estimate based on weight only.
1909-S VDB cent had a generous mintage, many were saved, yet it is considered scarce today (even though it really isn't).
Adding the caveat 'grade rarity doesn't count' makes this considerably tougher to come up with examples. There are a lot of Barber examples with moderate mintages that are readily available in low grades but scarce in VF-AU.
I'm guessing there are a number of Seated Dollars that could fit the bill though, as many were presumably exported and/or melted. The specialists probably have other Seated coin examples too, that suffered attrition through wear out and melting.
I considered the later date business strike 3 Cent silvers, but the mintages were pretty low to begin with, then many were melted or lost on top of that, making them downright rare.
Don’t forget certain $10 Indians
Problem free classic coinage can be a challenge to find, since it was once considered "common practice" to clean coins to make them appear nicer.
Pre-1853 silver coinage. The silver content was lowered in 1853 (not the Silver Dollar coin for some reason) and the silver coinage from previous years was supposed to have removed from circulation and melted fro further manufacture of coinage.
"Ron Guth: In 1853, the weight of the Half Dimes, Dimes, Quarter Dollars and Half Dollars was reduced to reflect a rise in the price of silver. The older coins were already being destroyed in large quantities because their intrinsic value exceeded their face value. To differentiate the new coins from the old, the Mint placed arrowheads on either side of the date. This did two things: it made it easy to identify the older coins with just a glance; and it also protected the newer coins from being melted, since they were immediately identifiable as the lower-weight coins."
http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Coin/Detail/4603
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To me, the 1901 Morgan comes to mind, a very ordinary 7M mintage but so few available especially in high grades.
The one that has really befuddled me is the valuation on the 1914-D Buffalo nickel, why so high compared to the others? Were they melted or recalled or something?
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I would bet a lot of the modern platinum mintages got melted when in 2008 platinum hit over $2100.
I recall taking numerous 4 coin sets of proof and burnished platinum 2005-w/2006-w/2007/w and scrapping then in spring of 2008. Over $100,000+ worth. (Actually at the time that was only about 100-150 coins) but against mintages below 5,000 it mattered and I'm sure I wasn't the only one to do it.
When silver hit close to $50 in 2010 tens of thousands of modern silver commemoratives went into the pot..............