what % of minting figures have survived and what % are high grade?

[scott 129]

always wondered this, what % of the acctual minting figure would a predecimal was lost when the coins went to decimalization. but curiously, grading, we know high grades cost more, but what % of a figure is expected in EF or above?

[Chris Perkins 223]

We can only make wild guesses now. I expect out of all the millions and millions of predecimal coins made there is probably 1-2% left at the most! This will obviously depend on the metal used as silver is valuable and very meltable but brass threepences are mostly junk and worth about 1p each.

And of that tiny fraction (which will of course be different for each coin and even each date) an even smaller proportion will be high grade collectable coins. Make something up like 0.0001% or something silly for EF and above, which is why they are rare and collectable of course. For many coins there are probably less than 100 uncirculated examples or even less than 10, which as a percentage of the total mintage would be something to-the-power-of lots of noughts. There are exceptions, like 1960s coinage, which is nearly always high grade and probably exists in larger numbers that anything earlier.

A good question Scott, that we'll never know the answer to.

[scott 129]

so what about the post 1860 copper? what we looking at, those are reasonable figures with scarce pieces and of course what everyone had

[Chris Perkins 223]

It's too late to know. Any survey on percentages of coins in circulation would have to be done when they were still in circulation. I think Freeman's book (The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain) and rarity scales it features are based on a sample of many thousands of coins taken from circulation. And that would be the rarity of the dates/types, nothing to do with grade.

The very best quality coins are rare things!

People always fail to realise that even if something is valuable in UNC condition, that it has little baring on the same coin in average condition. You know that by now!

[scott 129]

indeed i do know that, it just seems odd that sometimes some coins have a huge hike while other are only minor.

i was just wondering if there was a sort of estimate done on crades in general to gt a ball park figure of how rare something is in high grade regardless of mintage

[Chris Perkins 223]

That's easy! The rarest coins in higher grades will be the most expensive ones.

[scott 129]

and i'm guessing the mass hikes on things like KN and H is to do with strike quality as well?

[Red Riley 2]

and i'm guessing the mass hikes on things like KN and H is to do with strike quality as well?

Probably not. They are relatively expensive because they are perceived to be rare i.e. the mintage was low. What the prices don't account for is the number which were hoiked out of circulation by the likes of you and me. I posted something re KN pennies in a thread some while ago and saved a copy:

'I was wondering to what extent contemporary collecting activities have affected actual rarity, and whether the prices listed in guides are distorted by looking at the mintage figures rather than the ultimate numbers in existence. Firstly, the 1951 penny with a mintage of 120,000 which ought to make it pretty damn rare. But no, they all went to the West Indies and the great majority of them got pulled out of circulation early; I wouldn't mind betting that there are still in excess of 100,000 of these sloshing around the coin collecting world making them fairly common.

Second point, KN pennies. I was in the fortunate position of having a father who ran a shop and I checked every penny that came over the counter for a period of two and a half years (approximately early 69- decimalisation in February 71 and beyond) - i.e. tens of thousands of pennies; I found precisely zero KNs. Not one. In the same period I found probably fifteen 1918/19 Hs. To take 1918 as the example, the combined mintage of the Heaton and King's Norton mints for that year is given as 3,660,800 making them on the face of it, pretty scarce but then I look at ebay (just the auction sites) and for 1918 see the following pennies for sale:

1918 Royal Mint 9

1918 Heaton 8

1918 King's Norton 15

Alright, the common or garden 1918 is pretty unsaleable below VF, but 15 mostly low-grade KNs for sale in what I assume to be an average week surely tells its own story. And most of these do sell; not for much granted, but people are still prepared to part with their hard-earned cash for them.'

So the market is not perfect. Some coins sell because people think they're rare rather than because they actually are. The 'Birmingham' effect has a knock on where the common as muck 1912H is concerned and the prices are higher than would be expected (this is one coin where the 16m odd mintage figure can be relied on).

Without actually looking it up, Michael Freeman reckoned there are literally hundreds of millions of pre-decimal pennies still kicking around, and presumably the same applies to other denominations. In another thread two or three years back somebody posted a contemporary newspaper cutting saying that only one third of all bronze farthings minted where ever melted down by the mint, so the other two-thirds are in drawers, under floorboards, down the back of very old sofas etc. In fact one can assume that a large proportion of coins currently being collected were at some time lost and their grade would depend on i) how soon after the minting date they disappeared and ii) their circumstances once they had been lost i.e. a coin behind a bit of old oak panneling is likely to be in better condition than one dropped in the middle of a field.

Edited December 29, 2009 by Red Riley

[Peckris 579]

Red makes some excellent points. What's needed is a modern comprehensive survey of dealers and collectors, to get some idea of the remaining proportions of high grade coins. Mintage figures are more or less meaningless now - as already mentioned, 1950 and 1951 pennies were hyped as great rarities in the 60s, great for investment - they proved to be neither, and probably only the tiniest proportion of them got melted down.

I'd just like to add one more point - there is a distorting factor in the coin market, seen in all price guides, which is best illustrated by the 1893 and 1894 halfcrowns. CCGB 09 lists them as follows :

1893 £90 UNC £120 BU (mintage 1,792,000)

1894 £120 UNC - - - BU (mintage 1,524,000)

Note the very similar mintage figures. Yet despite this, most dealers will tell you how common the 1893 is in high grade (it's the first year of a new issue or reign - very often put aside, and therefore common), and how scarce and 'difficult' the 1894 is. From this, you would imagine that the 1894 should be worth at least twice as much, but it's not, nothing like. Enter the distorting factor : people who collect by 'type' - and that's probably the majority of serious collectors - will want the best example they can get of a series, not the rarest. Therefore they will flock to the 1893 halfcrown as they can more easily pick up one of that 'type'. This then pushes the price of the 1893 up, due to demand, and closes the gap somewhat with the 1894.

That's just one example out of many I could have chosen. So even price guides don't tell the whole story about rarity, only about market forces driven by supply and demand.

[£400 for a Penny ? 0]

'I was wondering to what extent contemporary collecting activities have affected actual rarity, and whether the prices listed in guides are distorted by looking at the mintage figures rather than the ultimate numbers in existence.

I have always had this theory as to the reason behind the comparative rarity of the 1915 and 16 pennies. Mintage figures would not lead one to the conclusion that they are rare:

1914 - 50,820

1915 - 47,310,807

1916 - 86,411,165

1917 - 107,905,436

A Martian landing today, would look at those and tell you that it is the 1914 which is hard to find.

I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but my experience has been that 1914 is relatively easy, it's 1915 & 16 which are hard to find in BU.

My theory for this is that your 'average' penny collector of the day was almost certainly male, relatively young and was sitting in a hole in France with other things on his mind at the time.

One of those things we can never know of course, but interesting to speculate.

[scott 129]

possibly, the war years there was hording, hence mint darkening (?)

but i'm alosing looking at the general price hikes of H and KN and the 1926 pennies from a few quid in fine to 30+ in VF, i dont see why, are they THAT obscure in date terms event wise thatno one kept anything back?)

[Gary D 76]

possibly, the war years there was hording, hence mint darkening (?)

but i'm alosing looking at the general price hikes of H and KN and the 1926 pennies from a few quid in fine to 30+ in VF, i dont see why, are they THAT obscure in date terms event wise thatno one kept anything back?)

When I first started collecting from change, mid to late 60s, all the known rarities were hard to find. H,KN, 1926ME, 46-49 3d, 02 low-tide etc. They, on the whole, had mostly already be removed from circulation. I would say that these now represent a far greater proportion of the remaining predecimal coinage than they did pre 1967.

[Red Riley 2]

possibly, the war years there was hording, hence mint darkening (?)

but i'm alosing looking at the general price hikes of H and KN and the 1926 pennies from a few quid in fine to 30+ in VF, i dont see why, are they THAT obscure in date terms event wise thatno one kept anything back?)

I have a feeling that collecting from change mushroomed in the 1960s, and that was the point at which most of the KN pennies were withdrawn from circulation. By this time the coins were over 40 years old and had generally descended to fine and worse. Coins withdrawn in the twenties and thirties would have been in better condition but there were less removed at that time. I think also, the awareness of the multiple origins of the 1918 and 1919 mintages did not really get spread among the populace in general until quite late on. Overall this resulted in a glut of low grade coins and a dearth of coins in higher grades especially EF and above. The 1926ME was always a much scarcer coin anyway, and considerably more difficult for the layman to spot but nonetheless, the same principle applies with most withdrawals occuring in the 1960s.

The reason I heard for the mint darkening pennies in 1944-6 was pretty much as Scott states it, but thinking a bit further along those lines, this may have been aimed at the large number of American servicemen in this country at that time who might otherwise have been tempted to take bright new pennies home as keepsakes. Still can't really get my head round it though as i) all seems a bit half-arsed. Why pennies and nothing else? and ii) I can't believe that with the numbers involved it would have made much difference. Perhaps it was all the idea of some low grade clerk in the Ministry of Wotnot that just got out of control. Who knows.

[Peckris 579]

possibly, the war years there was hording, hence mint darkening (?)

but i'm alosing looking at the general price hikes of H and KN and the 1926 pennies from a few quid in fine to 30+ in VF, i dont see why, are they THAT obscure in date terms event wise thatno one kept anything back?)

I have a feeling that collecting from change mushroomed in the 1960s, and that was the point at which most of the KN pennies were withdrawn from circulation. By this time the coins were over 40 years old and had generally descended to fine and worse. Coins withdrawn in the twenties and thirties would have been in better condition but there were less removed at that time. I think also, the awareness of the multiple origins of the 1918 and 1919 mintages did not really get spread among the populace in general until quite late on. Overall this resulted in a glut of low grade coins and a dearth of coins in higher grades especially EF and above. The 1926ME was always a much scarcer coin anyway, and considerably more difficult for the layman to spot but nonetheless, the same principle applies with most withdrawals occuring in the 1960s.

The reason I heard for the mint darkening pennies in 1944-6 was pretty much as Scott states it, but thinking a bit further along those lines, this may have been aimed at the large number of American servicemen in this country at that time who might otherwise have been tempted to take bright new pennies home as keepsakes. Still can't really get my head round it though as i) all seems a bit half-arsed. Why pennies and nothing else? and ii) I can't believe that with the numbers involved it would have made much difference. Perhaps it was all the idea of some low grade clerk in the Ministry of Wotnot that just got out of control. Who knows.

The darkening of the 1944-46 pennies was purely due to a new alloy that had to be used when the price and shortage of tin made that necessary. The new alloy looked horrible, so the darkening improved matters. (As far as I know, it had nothing to do with hoarding). However, it doesn't explain why that darkening didn't extend to new alloy halfpennies of the same years (starting 1942?) which as most collectors will know, look pink and ugly when they've lost lustre.

The H and KN pennies shoot up in VF and above partly due to the poor quality of the strike - the extra mints used the dies long after their finer detail, e.g. hair, was lost. The same may apply to 1926MEs, which being shallower portraits, probably wore quicker than previous.

[Red Riley 2]

The darkening of the 1944-46 pennies was purely due to a new alloy that had to be used when the price and shortage of tin made that necessary. The new alloy looked horrible, so the darkening improved matters. (As far as I know, it had nothing to do with hoarding). However, it doesn't explain why that darkening didn't extend to new alloy halfpennies of the same years (starting 1942?) which as most collectors will know, look pink and ugly when they've lost lustre.

The H and KN pennies shoot up in VF and above partly due to the poor quality of the strike - the extra mints used the dies long after their finer detail, e.g. hair, was lost. The same may apply to 1926MEs, which being shallower portraits, probably wore quicker than previous.

I have heard that explanation for the 1944-6 pennies as well, although no explanation really holds much water as i) we still hit the problem of why halfpennies and farthings weren't done; and ii) the darkening soon wears off in circulation making the whole thing a thoroughly pointless exercise anyway.

Personally, I don't believe that the strike of the H and KN pennies was significantly worse than those produced by the Royal Mint. Quite the worst made coins in terms of strike that I own are are two Royal Mint pennies from 1918 and 1920 -both high grade, the former has an almost featureless effigy and the latter an almost smooth Britannia. Where Heatons do fall down however is in the amount of ghosting on their coins which seems to be far worse than either the Royal Mint or King's Norton.

[Sylvester 15]

Since you mention survival rates of predecimal coins

Here's a little fact that always totally staggers me; the 1774 mintage of guineas and half guineas was supplied by melting down 20 million worn William III and Anne coins, yes 20 million! That's just a staggering amount, I mean if we were talking copper or lower silver like tanners and bobs I could believe it, but high value gold coins were not exactly minted in huge numbers. 20 million probably was the majority of William and Anne gold coins struck throughout their entire reigns. In 1774 of course silver was very hard to come by so gold and copper had to fill to void, hence the high mintage. But just consider that 20 million Anne/William gold coins went in 1774, how many more got melted in the coin shortages of the 1780s-1810s? And how many more were lost in the great recoinage of 1816?

How few must survive? And yet comparably Queen Anne gold isn't greatly more expensive than George III gold of the 1770s as one might expect it to be. Although the Victorians' penchant for vandalism of George III gold might have something to do with this, and may go some way to levelling the playing field so to speak.

[Red Riley 2]

I guess that was pretty much business as usual, the raw material for coinage has always been primarily other coins. Although 20 million seems to be a pretty serious number, I think we often underestimate the number of coins produced in earlier times. I did read somewhere that by analysis of the number of dies used, archaeologists estimate that there were more than a million Cunobelin gold staters minted at a time when the population of Britain was itself only about a million. Whatever you say about the Iron Age, somebody must have been seriously rich!

[Sylvester 15]

I think we often underestimate the number of coins produced in earlier times.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I'm always amazed when it's gold coins minted in such huge numbers though. It's a heck of a lot of staters indeed! But you also have to consider that there was no credit or paper currency alongside them. In the 17th and 18th centuries though the credit system and paper currency was far more organised and developed than many people think, Mayhew in his book on the History of Sterling said that only about 25% of the country's money (as memory suggests to me) was in coin form in the mid-1700s.

When it comes to silver coinage though there's always been a very large output because afterall until 1816 Britain wasn't officially on the gold standard, we relied more on silver for most of the period before 1750, it was only the mass silver shortage of the late 1700s that drove us towards pinning everything on gold. Look at Edward I's reign how many million silver pennies were produced? How many tens or maybe hundreds of thousands still survive?

[scott 129]

quite a faif few of them edward I pennies are by far the most common hammered coin

thing is with those old silver coins, they were thin, wonder how many got chipped bent cut etc. some countries had coins smaller then 3rd farthings as thin as these, how did they survive lol

well they did have many mins back then, which considering the fact they minted coins slower then, really shows how many they needed (like the H and KN in 1918 19, supply and demand) which makes me wonder, how many anne silver pieces were acctually minted, they were made in 2 mints as well... and james II? where have all his coins gone?

[Sylvester 15]

well they did have many mints back then,

Ah but what you have to consider with Edward I's era, okay so they didn't have as much use of credit and no physical forms of money as we're used to today, so coins in the physical form were required. On the other hand though the population was a lot smaller than it was in later centuries (admittedly it soon got much, much smaller after the winter plague outbreak of 1348/9), but futhermore of that smaller population, very few of them probably dealt first hand with money (or so historians and numismatists have been arguing for years), England in the middle ages was mostly a bartering society (at least in the lower orders, peasants, farming hands etc.) especially in rural areas (hence why the church taxes were call 'first fruits and tenths'... because they were paided in farmed produce, animals or fruits, vegetables, wheat, bread etc.)

In the cities with guilds that's where the money was mostly used, trade with Flanders/Antwerp. Hence the many, many continental imitation pieces of English silver pennies (and later gold nobles too). All I can say is we did a lot of trade! (English coins left England readily and were accepted abroad gladly because they were of high grade silver, unlike much of Europe where debasement was an ongoing issue).