Trade dollar question............ What are the toughest dates to find chopmarked?
Manorcourtman
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Curious newbie here. What dates are tough to find with chopmarks?
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Well for starters, the 75-P and 78-CC. In general, the Philadelphia mint dates are tougher than the other mint marks...
mbogoman
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/classic-issues-colonials-through-1964/zambezi-collection-trade-dollars/7345Asesabi Lutho
Chopmarkedtradedollars.com
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
What a timely post - I just bought a chop marked Trade Dollar last week that's currently in transit. I knew I wasn't going to get one of the ultra-difficult ones but wanted something that wasn't too common chop marked. I ended up with a 75-cc which I understand is a little rarer but not uncommon.
75-CC is a classic issue for the series and like you said it’s a bit scarcer than the most commonly encountered ones (74-S, 75-S, 76-S, 77-S). Enjoy!
Lermish’s site is a great resource for this question. What piqued your curiosity? If looking for a series with plenty of tough issues to find, you’ve come to the right place.
That online resource is superb and though not dedicated to chopmarked Trade Dollars the recent text by Joe Kirchgessner on Trade Dollars is an invaluable resource. Using Kirchgessner as a resource was a great aid to myself in defending a Trade Dollars variety attribution with our host.
Blue sofa is spot on and is a font of information on the subject as well. The Chopmark Collectors Society is a great resource as well.
I am an old timer collector but only in the last five years have become serious about Trade Dollars collector. The names on this thread and scattered in these forums are literally more subject matter experts on chopmarked Trade Dollars than your typical grader at a TPG.
Lastly we all “hope for that day” when interest/demand literally takes off on this unique area of collecting which has a very finite supply of inventory.
One more plug but for @BlueSofa.
A few weeks ago @BlueSofa started a thread on changes in Trade Dollars Chopmarked populations. That thread has meaty nuggets and is worth a look for yourself/anyone. Hopefully we will do this kind of analysis periodically as a community.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/13963126#Comment_13963126
76-p isn’t exactly a walk in the park
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From memory, toughest to easiest:
75
78-cc
73-cc
73
76
74
77
76-cc
77-cc
78-s
73-s
75-cc
74-cc
76-s
77-s
74-s
75-s
I mostly agree with this. Although in theory 73-P is tougher than 73-CC, anecdotally I have come across 73-P more often.
Splitting hairs, but IMO it's more like:
75-P
78-CC
73-CC
73-P
74-P
76-P
77-P
77-CC
76-CC
73-S
74-CC
78-S
75-CC
74-S
76-S
75-S
77-S
But the rankings in top third of the list are (approximately) each separated by something like 10 coins or fewer so it's hard to be definitive.
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
Potato, po-tah-to
Trade dollar question............ What are the toughest dates to find chopmarked?
My guess is 1884 and 1885.
An exceptionally attractive example. Pop 20 more than qualifies as a tough date.
Interesting with the listing of hardest to easiest chop marks by @lermish and @tradedollarnut. It shows that it was much easer shipping Trade Dollars from the west coast to China than shipping from Philadelphia to west coast and then to China or shipping from New York around South America to China.
Let me interject with some more “nuance” learned from “master TD collector” @lermish.
While 1876 P w/chopmarks is tough at the macro level……when you get down in the weeds of 1876 P Varieties the numbers are incredibly small.
@bluesofa in his insightful post weeks shed the light in my mind that there are “hoards” popping up (hoard defined as 50 not like the 1970s Carson City GSA hoard) the supply of coins is very limited.
@Lermish rightly listed
“Splitting hairs, but IMO it's more like:
75-P
78-CC
73-CC
73-P
74-P
76-P
77-P
77-CC
76-CC
73-S
74-CC
78-S
75-CC
74-S
76-S
75-S
77-S
But the rankings in top third of the list are (approximately) each separated by something like 10 coins or fewer so it's hard to be definitive.“
But what he did not write to use example……While an 1875 CC Type I/I is approaching “common” the The I/II version of the same year is exceedingly difficult to obtain. I use that as an example reflecting on @WACoinGuy who purchased a 1875 CC.
Another example…..1876 P Type I/II can be found with effort……..the Type II/II is defacto winning the lottery.
I did notice that bout the type I/II when I bought my Trade dollar, but alas it wasn't a cherrypicking opportunity for me.
Since we're in the weeds anyway and I love nerding out on this..based on estimated survivors of type 2/2 76-Ps (~50) and ratio of surviving non-chopped to chopped for the date (30:1ish) I would expect 1 or 2 chopped examples to exist, maybe zero. Yet, I am personally aware of 5 distinct coins and there certainly may be more. Assuming my statistical assumptions and math are correct, I make it about a 2% chance that this distribution occurred.
PS-Thank you for your kind words but I would never consider myself a master... Almost everything I know has been learned from people on these boards and in other groups.
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
Especially the CC's.........
I always found it interesting the 1875 s/cc appears to be more common chopped than unchopped.
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
A little late to this thread...
The estimates by @TDN and @Lermish are very close to each other and pretty accurate, I think. If I were to quibble, on Lermish's rankings, I would flip the 73-P and the 73-CC; and I would flip the 74-CC and the 78-S. Both the 74-CC and the 75-CC are very common chopmarked. Again, these are just quibbles.
If you get down into the weeds, although the 75-S/CC is not that hard to find chopmarked, as @Crypto points out, a 75-S/CC FS-502 is. Likewise a 75-CC I/I is common; a 75-CC I/II is not. As Lermish has noted, a 76-P II/II is nearly impossible to find, more difficult than a 73-P or maybe even a 78-CC, I'd argue. Among the 76-CCs, a 76-CC I/I that is not DDR is more difficult to find than a 76-CC I/I that is doubled.
Complete Set of Chopmarked Trade Dollars
Carson City Silver Dollars Complete 1870-1893http://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/showcase.aspx?sc=2722"
Just for fun, there are three 76-CC 1/1s, consisting of four die marriages.
There are two "Normal CC" 1/1s which are legitimately rare.
The aforementioned doubled die reverse, by far the most common of the 1/1s but still quite scarce in an absolute value.
And the extremely scarce very wide CC (although it is by far the most common of the four very wide CC dates)
chopmarkedtradedollars.com