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People say that they get them very occasionally but I believe that not even the entire mintage was released into circulation. In Zimbabwe in 1964 I think (controversially).

I know that auction houses may wish to set a low estimate to generate interest but a recent sale i have just been reading about (coin news) must of put a smile on the sellers face. An elderley lady whos husband had passed away took some banknotes wrapped in tissue paper to Tring market auction based in Hertfordshire. The late husband had been given the notes years earlier. Auction estimate was set at £500-700. Quite a lot of interest as they sold due to the specimen notes for...........£205,000.00 😮. I bet the lady enjoyed a drink that night 😂

As did the auctioneer (~£40k commission).

Mintages are definitely not the main determining factor in price, which for most things on this planet is supply and demand. A good example is the wreath crown where the vast majority of coins struck must still be extant, not having circulated to any large degree. In fact, these are likely to be the largest population of 20th century material surviving post-demonetisation where the numbers struck are close to the numbers extant. With no published die varieties to chase, it means the sales prices are quite clean and representative. Using high grade examples, with the exception of the 1934 with a mintage of 932 which regularly sell in the 3500 - 5000 range, all the others typically sell for 4-800. The two next lowest mintages with just under 2.5x this are the 1932 & 1936 which sell in the upper end of the range, but the others mostly sell in the 4-500 bracket. Based on mintages, the 1934 is clearly overpriced, or else the others are underpriced. Given the assumed correlation above between mintage vs extant, I suppose this gives us an approximate figure for the numbers of people collecting this issue. Demand for the rarest year (by mintage) is clearly buoyant based on prices, yet the number of examples coming to market is disproportionately large relative to the other mintages. They are always available. This I believe is due to collectors putting off purchasing a 1934 until relatively later in their collecting life due to the higher cost, and as a result will be retained for a shorter period of time than is the case for the other years, leading to them being resold quicker. The collector's perception of rarity is derived from the published figures published and it is this which drives the price, because it certainly isn't availability. The next two rarest years are probably a better indicator of demand. In my opinion, you see relatively fewer of these, and they command a small premium to the rest. The 4056 mintage for 1931 therefore appears to fully satisfy demand leading me to the assumption that the number of collectors is somewhere in the low thousands.I could be wrong, but don't think it is too wide of the mark. When it comes to varieties the waters are somewhat muddied, as they tend to only be collected by the broader population once they have been written down and referenced, and then only by a small minority of specialists. The majority of collectors will only ever want a type example. This leads to some stratospheric prices where only a handful are known, but the collector base is wide, but also leads to a rapidly reducing price subsequently once more examples become available due to the spread of knowledge and people actively seeking out the variety, e.g. the 1893/2 penny. That speaks volumes about attention to detail and the depth to which collectors actually study their coins, and raises the question of greed and avarice - but that's another discussion.

Could this not be a difference of perception? While coins are circulating the relative rarity applies to those that you can expect to find in your pocket. Once no longer legal tender, then the rarity goalposts move to reflect the reduced number of people with an interest in the coin. The number of actual collectors of said item then has to be weighed against the number of coins extant, which will diminish rapidly around the time of demonetisation.