Coins with a mintage of 5 million are not uncommon. Because some countries sometimes have a mintage of more than a billion for a particular coin in a particular year, 5 million seems relatively uncommon and the chances of getting one in your change isn't that high. In New Zealand for example, many pre-decimal coins have mintages of lower than 1 million and are still really easy to obtain cheaply.
Yep, most of the Pacific Islands coins have really low mintages but are easy to pick up. The 1938 florin from Fiji has a mintage of only 20,000 but I've got 2 of them in my collection and I've had 3 more pass through my hands in the last 2 years. The 1974 20 Tene from Cook Islands has a mintage of 5,500 and I've had 4 of them in the last couple of years.
Nobody is taking out their anger on you, we're just pointing out that the rarity scale is subjective. If you're talking about countries like USA when they minted over 10 billion of some of their pennies each year then a coin with 500,000 mintage is rare, if you're talking about countries with smaller mintages then it's not rare. Vatican City is another one, the mintages seem to be around 250,000-1,000,000 for the ones from the 50s onwards, so a coin of 500,000 mintage is not really rare.
The URS scale I've seen is different to the one you're listing too.
Quote: ZuluRaptorSpacePhil suggested the URS, and apparently on it 500k is rare.
Why does all of Numista take out their anger on me?
Nobody's angry with you young feller. Your enthusiasm is to be applauded.
Here's the deal, we currently have an amateurish, arbitrary system of deciding what constitutes a rare coin at Numista. It's actually quite embarrassing to see coins with mintages over a million described as ultra rare. It seems to be pretty much up to whoever enters the coin if it's rare or not which of course is silly. "Rare" is probably the most overused word in Numismatics.
There are two rarity scales in common use, the Sheldon scale developed by the same halfwit who gave us the Sheldon grading system and the Universal Rarity Scale which is much more relevant and is very similar to what you are proposing.
However both of these were developed long ago during the golden age of Numismatics. Before the advent of bogus commemoratives with artificially low mintages and they are really only applicable to industrialized nations with large populations which produce massive mint runs. They were also developed before spreadsheets and computers which brings me to the next point.
Now if you want to develop a useful rarity scale here's how to do it. Produce a formula which takes into account the country's population during the period, the mintage figures for other coins in the same series and finally the actual mintage figure.
That would give much more weight to say a coin with a mintage of 20,000 produced in Germany than a similar coin from Trinidad. Adjust the formula until you can give an accurate rating to any coin then publish it.
You might become famous.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Any rarity index should be on some kind of log scale, with a little warning saying "Danger: countries with far too many collectors (USA) will suffer from overvalued coins."
This is what I have developed so far:
.5 amount of the coin's mintage (estimate mintage number if needed) per century
if coin is silver, .7 the amount of the .5 per century
if gold, .6 the .5
To check the estimated number that survive today.
"rare" is defined as 1 coins/300 population (for example, a country with 5m population would have a rare coin with a mintage of about 8333 or less)(contemporary to when coin was made) for a country with over 1m pop
country with <1m pop at time of mintage would have 1 coin/100 pop
for the two above, multiply by 2 per century
if coin is silver, multiply per 10 and then divide by 7, then multiply by 2 per century
if coin is gold, multiply by 10 and then divide by 6, then multiply by 2 per century
To see what rare would be.
I only stumbled back to Numista now, in
middle of nights darkest hours. Just to confirm as well, not angry and
not taking anger out on anyone. As they said just pointing out the
countries different populations that make huge difference. But as i see u
already got it and are working out a new formula:)
We are friends here in Numista, not enemies, sorry if u got the wrong
end of the stick, didnt mean it that way.
p.s. i like the way ur thinking with new one (the post just before me) taking into account population n all
Quote: ZuluRaptorSpaceThis is what I have developed so far:
.5 amount of the coin's mintage (estimate mintage number if needed) per century
if coin is silver, .7 the amount of the .5 per century
if gold, .6 the .5
To check the estimated number that survive today.
"rare" is defined as 1 coins/300 population (for example, a country with 5m population would have a rare coin with a mintage of about 8333 or less)(contemporary to when coin was made) for a country with over 1m pop
country with <1m pop at time of mintage would have 1 coin/100 pop
for the two above, multiply by 2 per century
if coin is silver, multiply per 10 and then divide by 7, then multiply by 2 per century
if coin is gold, multiply by 10 and then divide by 6, then multiply by 2 per century
To see what rare would be.
I like it, but what about tiny countries like the Vatican?
Quote: dptashnyI like it, but what about tiny countries like the Vatican?
Is 'rarity' a matter of limited supply only, or of demand as well?
European mini states have low mintages, but fairly high demand among collectors, while some tiny African countries have equally low mintages but demand among collectors is low. Should both be considered equally 'rare'?
