Common coins with low mintages

I've just taken a quick look at the Guernsey 10p from 1968 (yes, thats the one with the cow) and was surprised to find that the mintage was only 600,000.  I've often found these in bags of mixed coins and just thrown them in the swaps pile, but I may now start to look at them slightly differently.  

N#5635 

Do you have anything with a similar low mintage that regularly turns up? 

Being in New Zealand, I used to get lots of Pacific islands coins that are all low mintage from bulk lots.  Some of the Cook Islans coins were ridiculously low mintage.  I had one coin that had a mintage of just 2,000….and I owned 5 or 6 of them.  That's like 0.25% of the world's supply 😆

Very common for us UK collectors to find in mixed bags as you said or on our Ebay along with other places like Jersey and Isle of Man, my guessing is the mintages were enough for the whole island of Guernsey. Low mintage in the coin collector world but enough supply for Guernsey back in the day and enough still around now even after demonetisation of these older pieces. Which reminds me I haven't found a Guernsey coin in change in 6 years now. My opinion is yes they're low mintage but common enough despite the low mintages for us UK collectors to find to use for swaps here if a foreign collector is missing it in their collection. 

I imagine it's a similar situation for Italians who find old Vatican and San Marino low mintage Lire coins with low mintages in their local markets and auction sites and are often available for swap.

Here in Canada, the 1970 5 Cent piece.  5,726,010 minted with that date.  If going strictly by date the last time there was a lower mintage was 1955 @ 5,355,028.

I used to pick these out of my pocket change and only have one left.

As a fellow UK collector mostly it’s due to geography and the connection as I’ve found many territory coins in bulk world coin lots and while they are common here they are seldom found elsewhere as not too long ago I had some Isle of Man 50p and £2 commemoratives as well as some Gibraltar, Falkland and Saint Helena 10ps and all those went like hotcakes in swaps barely staying for more than a week before being selected.

I’m sure Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican are the same in Italy and France as well as pacific coins that are common in Australia and New Zealand but seldom seen over here. Could also apply to lower mintage Caribbean and LATAM coins that are common as muck in North America but are not encountered much elsewhere.

Worldwide collection

As a fellow UK collector mostly it’s due to geography and the connection as I’ve found many territory coins in bulk world coin lots and while they are common here they are seldom found elsewhere as not too long ago I had some Isle of Man 50p and £2 commemoratives as well as some Gibraltar, Falkland and Saint Helena 10ps and all those went like hotcakes in swaps barely staying for more than a week before being selected.

 

I’m sure Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican are the same in Italy and France as well as pacific coins that are common in Australia and New Zealand but seldom seen over here. Could also apply to lower mintage Caribbean and LATAM coins that are common as muck in North America but are not encountered much elsewhere.

One of the best perks of being a British collector and swapper is exactly this in regards to us having easier access to territory coins than others. Makes for some awesome swaps. The poster is definitely right how they show up alot here despite mintages and taking into equation that good numbers would've been traded in during demonetisation too but it's definitely not the experience of non British based collectors who would be over the moon finding a Falklands or Guernsey etc coin on a local market or coin shop bin (just like when I found my first Vatican coins on a carboot sale). You're absolutely right about the geography take on this too. 

I agree, collecting a lot of Pacific Islands coinage, you get used to mintage figures of like a few thousand up to maybe a million pieces at most for some dates. I think mintage size fits with population. 600k for a Guernsey coin is quite high as the island only has a population of 25k now, and likely much less in 1968.

In New Zealand, most predecimal coins had mintages in the 7 figures and 6 figure mintages for the rarer dates. Our rarest circulation coin had 40,000 minted and its a scarce collectible (1935 3d). But in 1961 they minted a halfcrown with just 80,000 minted, yet the coin is quite cheap, mostly as it only circulated for a few years and its a base metal coin.

A true rarity - 5 figure mintage coin, few know or care about.

I actually get more of a buzz of low mintages from countries with a larger population like Canada. Several dates of silver 50 cent coins had extremely low 5 figure mintages like 1905, 1934, 1948 and these coins are definitely harder to find than say a Samoan 20 sene coin of 1967 which had a mintage of 50,000.

Or with my Australian collection - some super rarieties include the 1934/35 Victorian Centenary Florin. The coin had a mintage of just 75,000 when usual Florin mintages were between 1 and 8 million coins per year. However this coin was sold at 3/- (50% mark up) and given it was the depression, few were saved. Needless to say the coin became a rarity and 21.something k were minted leaving some 53 and a bit k left. Yet compare that to the 1927 Parliament House florin, 2 million minted, no mark up and issued in 1927 during the height of the roaring 20s. These coins go for melt value or even less.

Another popular rarity is the 1938 Silver crown, first issued in 1937, the large silver coin was a huge flop and some 1 million were issued, a low but not rare mintage. In 1938 just 100k were minted and these are truly scarce (Costs are in the mid 3 figures, but not super rare like a 1930 penny). Even more scarce are the specimen 5 shilling banknotes they were going to issue in 1939, but got interrupted by the war.