Are "rare" coins even more rare than we realize?

DesertLizard · November 29, 2002 12:45PM

For the last 5-6 years I have tried to find about 10-12 coins that the pop charts tell me are out there. Not many but at least 40-50 coins in the grade I seek, MS64. These coins are so elusive I never see them at auction, forget about ebay, nothing at Heritage and nothing at shows. When I do see one every 6 mos or so, it is invariably in an ACG, NTC or other impaired holder.

I don't need more competition in finding these coins so let me just say one is about an "1840-50s half". I suspect the few 64's out there have been submitted so many times the charts are way way off and instead of a pop of 40 something maybe it really is in the high teens. Either way, suppose it is 17 coins in MS64, are they all in collector sets locked away for a generation or more?

I am sure that there are other series/ coins in similar situations, which leads me to believe the true population of good "desirable" collectible coins is far smaller than most realize.

Anyone else experiencing this shortage?

keets · November 29, 2002 1:03PM

hey, hey

don't worry about the impaired holder, buy the coin!!!

i assume you're checking out what you find in the second tier service slabs and making your decision on that and not solely on the name of the service. what's been wrong with the coins you've found?

i've found certain grades difficult to locate and i assume the listed pops are the result of what you said, resubmission or coins socked away in a collection. not much you can do about either, just be patient and keep looking.

al h.

Placid · November 29, 2002 1:05PM

Tried the certified coin exchange?

DaveG · November 29, 2002 1:07PM

Or, the coins may exist, but they're either in closely held, long-term collections, or the "specialists" just trade them among themselves.

DHeath · November 29, 2002 1:11PM

I asked Mr.Hall what percentage of old collections he thought had been graded on Q & A the other night, and he said this:

I do know from looking at the Pop Report for 1860 to 1900 proofs that we have probably graded 25% to 35% of the surviving specimens. There's going to be plenty of coins to grade for the next several decades. However, I do feel that the Population growth for vintage coins has slowed and will continue to slow as we grade a bigger and bigger percentage of the surviving specimens.

I'm sure for some series/dates the pops are much lower than the combined numbers of the grading services pop charts. Is it possible that ½ of all surviving specimens of some series have been graded? Wouldn't that make "rare" more accurate.

Blade · November 29, 2002 1:15PM

You may need to hunt outside of certified coins. You would think that most coins of serious value are in holders. But I tend to wonder. I met a dealer recently that sells all high-end stuff. He has been grading for 35+ years and made the claim that at one time in the 1970's he had $8 million in inventory - more than Bowers & Merena, Stacks, anybody. His stuff was amazing. 1916 SLQ, Super high end MS67s, Pre 1800 coins in AU-MS65. He had no slabs and said he believed his grading. He backed it by a guarantee that he would (1) buy back at 85% purchase price for any of his grades and (2) give 100% trade-in at said grade towards any upgrade.

How many other guys like that are out there? How many coins are still unslabbed? It takes guts to buy a raw 1916 SLQ in MS66, but if you believe in your seated liberty half grading abilities, I'll bet a nice MS64 is out there.

DesertLizard · November 29, 2002 2:00PM

OK, I am looking for an 18XX MS64 50c. Pop says there are 11 out there, I say maybe more like 3-4 in PCGS. I have seen one NGC in 4 years.

DaveG: Do you really think specialists trade among themselves? Maybe on low end stuff but when you have $5k+ tied up in a coin you want mx value that an auction can provide.

DHEath: Interesting comments from Hall

Blade: Raw? maybe on a modern or low end coin but not on a $5k piece. Too many games and too many skilled doctors out there.

Placid: What is the certified Coin Exchange?

Edited as the coin has been located! [by Placid]

mr3holesinone · November 29, 2002 2:16PM

It is my belief (and hope I guess) that coins are more rare than we can ever know.

Here's my thoughts on how gold may be more rare than pop reports, dealer cases, prices lists, auctions, etc. lead you to believe. Is there anyone who has not seen a $2.50 Indian in a bezel setting as a ring or necklace? Admittedly, these pieces did not have high dollar investor potential written on them, but they are still lost to the numismatic world. They'll most likely be melted when their owners get rid of them. How many gold pieces were melted when gold was hitting $800 or more?

For silver coins, most circulated and relatively few were saved. Again, I believe many were melted during the early '80s when silver was around $50/ounce. I don't know for sure but I would imagine that almost all pieces that were good to maybe xf that were brought in were melted. Maybe some dealers cherry picked through the silver each day to see if there were any keepers, maybe not. Maybe some dealers could share what really happened during those times.

Other losses of coins would be disasters (floods, tornados, fires) and theft. I know that the 'pot hole banks' probably didn't have many coins but I'm also sure that more than a few will never be found. Some have been plowed under and subdivisions or shopping centers built over the top of them possibly.

More coins are plain old fashioned lost than most people realize too. I've been lucky enough to find quite a few silver coins with my metal detector to know this. Recently, someone found an Oregon commem while detecting and showed off his find to this board, Great find by the way.

And now we get to an area where no one can really know the answer..... just how many resubmissions are not being taken off of the pop reports? Since we are dealing mainly with high quality, rare coins, I would not be surprised if the pop reports are off by AT LEAST 25%. I'm referring mainly to coins minted before 1950. The price jumps from 63 to 64, 64 to 65, etc., have made the breakout game a very profitable business for those with an eye. A persistant submitter may have to try five to ten times to get their coin in 'the' holder but sooner or later they make it and it's done. And, yes, those submissions may have been twice to PCGS, three times to NGC, twice more to PCGS, once to ANACS maybe, back to PCGS and voila, presto, the coin is suddenly worth triple what it was before (maybe, I know it's happened many, many times).

Finally, what about the coins that are in permanent collections (museums, ANA, Smithsonian, etc), personal collections that may not surface for years, others locked in safe deposit boxes and forgotten about, or taken overseas for foreign collections, or in hoards, or in dealers' inventories that you'll never see?

As you can guess, it's my belief that rare coins are more rare than we currently realize.

Placid · November 29, 2002 2:25PM

CCE is a place where many dealer advertise thier coin. It sort of like searching many dealers sites at once.

CCE

Placid · November 29, 2002 2:30PM

DL check your pm I found one.

DesertLizard · November 29, 2002 2:53PM

Placid is a genius!

Shhhh! Look busy!

Thanks Placid!

DaveG · November 30, 2002 9:51AM

Desert Lizard:

I don't really have enough information to be authoritative (especially about $5k coins!), but I've certainly read on the Board here about EAC members selling the nicer examples to each other, I've heard about dealers arranging "private" auctions for a handful of specialist collectors, and I've seen ads in the Gobrecht Journal for material that doesn't seem to make it to ads in Coin World and I've certainly seen wholesalers at shows with boxes of knock-your-eyes out material that seems to go from wholesaler to dealer to want-list customer without ever being in a dealer's case for "ordinary" customers (like me) to see.

So yes, depending on how you define "specialist", my opinion is that there is a lot of material moving around out there that you have to be "connected" to know about.

clackamas · November 30, 2002 11:22AM

>Other losses of coins would be disasters (floods, tornados, fires)

I know of a nice MS 3C silver and a 1916-D Merc that were lost in a fire this year. How about when all those expensive homes 1000+ went up in smoke in Oakland. How many "S" and "CC" mints were in the little private collections?

mr3holesinone · December 2, 2002 2:14PM

Good point Clackamas. While I hate to think people didn't have time to get their valuables out when the fires were burning you know some had to be left behind. Maybe not the most valuable items but the fringe items you'd overlook when moving some of your treasured valuables to safety at a time like that.

Anyone else know of other occasions where coins have been lost forever or at least for the time being?

cladking · December 2, 2002 10:17PM

I got to check a lot of the stuff that was being melted in the big melt from '79 to '84.
The buyers would pull out stuff they knew to be valuable and then let others with
different knowledge. There was a huge amount of material and much of it quite
collectible. Proof sets with the cent and nickel removed and rolls of unc coins dating
back to the early 40's were common. Much of this was silverware and decorative items
of all descriptions. Most was in good condition. It was far too much and far too expensive
to save anything but the most desirable items. Most of it was circulated coins and these
always got at least a cursory look but once it was determined that a batch was just cir-
culating coinage from the early 60's it was just sent on. In early 1980 there was just a
flood of silver and I doubt that it was all checked as thorougly. I've heard that the re-
finers generally did no real checking at all and that the flow was simply overwhelming.
There no doubt were some rarities included in these melts but people usually know when
they have a valuable item and want full value for it.

Historically man made items are considered to have a 1% attrition rate but this includes
the destruction caused by war. In the modern US this rate should be lower especially for
items which have great value and hence more protection. Still there are banks and coin
shops which burn and great rarities can be severely degraded or destroyed in burglaries.
Actually circulating coinage has a far higher attrition rate because the coins are also lost
for all time or even discarded or used as a missile. Those which aren't permanently lost
or destroyed tend to get more worn with the passage of time.

BillJones · December 2, 2002 11:01PM

There are several ways of looking at this.

First, the number of coins that are on the market and available for sale at one time is the tip of the iceberg. For every coin that is for sale there are many others that are sitting in collections or accumulations for most issues (1913 Liberty nickels excluded). Therefore one cannot conclude that something is “rare” because you have not seen very many in the market over a couple of years.

Sometimes coins seem to come in waves where a lot of pieces appear at once. When the market absorbs them, they once more appear to be “rare.” This happened a few years ago with Proof gold coins. A large number of pieces were auctioned, and the bourse and private treaty markets were unable to absorb them quickly. Therefore there were a lot of these coins on the market. Over time they were purchased and now the situation is back to normal. The same was true for Proof-like Unc. 1796 quarters. For a time in the 1970s it seemed that every major auction had one and the selling price was $15,000. Today that coin is seldom seen in that level of preservation although a fair number of them exist.

Second, one should not place huge stock on population reports. First they cover ONLY the coin the services have graded. There could be far more pieces out there. Second they include re-submissions which can OVERSTATE the population. This I believe is true for 1854-D Three Dollar Gold Pieces. The same AUs have been submitted time and time again in futile efforts to get them into Mint State holders. As a result one could be led to believe that the coin is far more common in true AU that it actually is.

Third, there are many 19th century issues that rare but very much under appreciated in Mint State condition. I know that this is especially true of $10 gold pieces. Many $10 gold coin issues from the late 1830s to the 1870 are rare or non-existent in Mint State. I remember when I saw the Eliasberg when it was in display at the Philadelphia Mint in 1976 that I was really surprised at the relatively low condition of the $10 gold coins. The reason is that those pieces were not saved in quantity, and Mint State pieces are quite scarce. I rather imagine that the same is true for some issues of Seated Half Dollars from the 1840s and ’50s.

DHeath · December 2, 2002 11:49PM

Bill,

I'm sure one of the reasons many of the 18th century coins are "under-appreciated" has to do with price. There are many people who would build a collection in which the most expensive coin in the collection cost $300. Only a small portion of the total collector base would start some of the more difficult and expensive collections. IMO. I think most of the in-betweens, are type collectors.

michael · December 3, 2002 1:15AM

for me in general so called rare coins are not rare at all they are all rather available

it think the term rare coins is a great misnomer

and after 1929 most all stuff is common as most all was saved in multiple roll and bag quantity

sincerely michael

cladking · December 3, 2002 1:49AM

<< <i>

and after 1929 most all stuff is common as most all was saved in multiple roll and bag quantity

sincerely michael >>

This may apply to many of the 1929 to 1964 coins. Coins mnted after the BU roll market collapse
in 1964 were saved in much smaller quantities. Cents and nickels for most dates are not extremely
difficult to locate. There were some halfs and dollars saved also but the smaller clad coins were not
saved. Most of the coins that were saved from this era are very poorly struck and have numerous
marks. If not for the very unloved mint sets there would be many rarities in the dimes and quarters
in unc condition. The mint set populations are much lower than most people realize.

Are "rare" coins even more rare than we realize?

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Are &quot;rare&quot; coins even more rare than we realize?

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Are "rare" coins even more rare than we realize?