Comparative rarity scales

[freewheels 2]

Hi Forum knowledgeable types,

There have been a lot of recent postings about comparative rarity of bun head pennies, Freeman or Gouby maybe Peck.

Victorian sovereigns seem to be Marsh and silver seems to be Esc (and Peck?).

As you can tell from the way I have phrased it, I don't own publications authored by these sources, so I admit to being out of my depth here, but my question is...

What would be an appropriate way to calibrate the different R #'s of these various sources. Freeman seems to have far higher numbers than these other scales.

What for example would be a Marsh "scarce" on a Freeman scale?

Another example I hear is a silver coin "R4 11 - 20 examples known", what scale is that and what would Freeman call an 1882 "London Mint(?)" penny on his scale?

Any thoughts?

and..

That leads me to want to know the comparative rarities of widely different coins from different eras such as 1841halfcrown in high grade vis a vis 1905 high grade, 1922 2nd reverse 1d, 1926 me penny (top grade) , 1726 halfcrown, 1697 crown, 1841 sovereign etc,etc, etc.

Staying away from minor or controversial varieties, how about a top 10 or top 25 grade dependent and then rarest issues in any grade?

Any thoughts?

Freewheels.

[Rob 3,152]

Hi Forum knowledgeable types,

There have been a lot of recent postings about comparative rarity of bun head pennies, Freeman or Gouby maybe Peck.

Victorian sovereigns seem to be Marsh and silver seems to be Esc (and Peck?).

As you can tell from the way I have phrased it, I don't own publications authored by these sources, so I admit to being out of my depth here, but my question is...

What would be an appropriate way to calibrate the different R #'s of these various sources. Freeman seems to have far higher numbers than these other scales.

What for example would be a Marsh "scarce" on a Freeman scale?

Another example I hear is a silver coin "R4 11 - 20 examples known", what scale is that and what would Freeman call an 1882 "London Mint(?)" penny on his scale?

Any thoughts?

and..

That leads me to want to know the comparative rarities of widely different coins from different eras such as 1841halfcrown in high grade vis a vis 1905 high grade, 1922 2nd reverse 1d, 1926 me penny (top grade) , 1726 halfcrown, 1697 crown, 1841 sovereign etc,etc, etc.

Staying away from minor or controversial varieties, how about a top 10 or top 25 grade dependent and then rarest issues in any grade?

Any thoughts?

Freewheels.

For currency coins just about every rarity attribution underestimates the quantity available. For patterns and proofs the numbers tend to be reasonably accurate but with a few glaring exceptions. Many rarity values assigned by Peck, Freeman, Rayner or whoever are numbers plucked out of the air and should be disregarded. It is worth doing your own research from past sales because you will be surprised by the results obtained. Rare currrency pieces in high grade will almost always be recorded and illustrated which helps. I know of R7s in ESC where there are many more known and equally an R rating where I can't find a single example. The job is harder for base metal because until Peck and Freeman published, you were an oddball if you collected pennies et infra and they were rarely listed in catalogues, rather lumped together as job lots sometimes running into hundreds of coins.

So to answer your question, given they are all inaccurate, correlating the different numbers is a pointless task.

[VickySilver 855]

Yes, consensus amont "experts" a real task as there isn't any. The London mint 1882 piece discussed on these boards is a perfect example. A lot harder to put out a catalogue that people take as gospel than to criticize and being complete is well-nigh impossible.

[argentumandcoins 70]

Rarity is totally irrelevant to a collector who is looking to purchase, availability is more appropriate.

Much of the work done by Peck was on coins held in museums and choice collections, Rayner was similar. Freeman devised rarities based on the tens of thousands of coins that he had gathered himself.

Gouby has tried to use the method that Rob advises and therefore his rarities for bun pennies are probably the most accurate.

The only work that I know of that lists rarity based on grade is "English Milled Coinage in silver, copper and bronze" by Cope and Rayner. It is dated now but is a useful guide.

At the end of the day there might be 15 examples of a particular coin known but if 14 are held by museums that makes the 1 in private hands almost unique.

[Colin G. 147]

Rarity is totally irrelevant to a collector who is looking to purchase, availability is more appropriate.

That is the perfect phrase in my mind, there are Guernsey coins with mintages of 60,000 where you can obtain a top grade example with relative ease, try and do the same thing with certain date copper farthings where the mintages are substantially higher.

This is what makes determining rarity nearly impossible, you would have to factor in availabilty/mintage/grade and many other aspects, and even then it would have to incorporate a fairly large factor of safety, and I guarantee plenty of other numismatists would disagree with some of the ratings!!

[Peckris2 0]

Rarity is totally irrelevant to a collector who is looking to purchase, availability is more appropriate.

except of course, to those collectors who are looking to purchase simply due to the rarity of a coin!

The only work that I know of that lists rarity based on grade is "English Milled Coinage in silver, copper and bronze" by Cope and Rayner. It is dated now but is a useful guide.

At the end of the day there might be 15 examples of a particular coin known but if 14 are held by museums that makes the 1 in private hands almost unique.

I own that work (1972). I take it with a large pinch of salt, specially when they claim the 1923 halfcrown in BU is rarer than the 1925 !!!

[Rob 3,152]

and..

That leads me to want to know the comparative rarities of widely different coins from different eras such as 1841halfcrown in high grade vis a vis 1905 high grade, 1922 2nd reverse 1d, 1926 me penny (top grade) , 1726 halfcrown, 1697 crown, 1841 sovereign etc,etc, etc.

Staying away from minor or controversial varieties, how about a top 10 or top 25 grade dependent and then rarest issues in any grade?

Any thoughts?

Freewheels.

I think you will find there are insufficient people with the necessary resources to do such a study. We all have gut feelings for relative rarity, but very little concrete evidence resulting from systematic study. Most of us will do some sort of number crunching in our respective field of interest, but unless the statistics are collected under standardised procedures it will be comparing chalk & cheese.

You shouldn't underestimate the amount of work required to do such a study. I've just completed a study of the Weyl patterns for publication in the BNJ which has taken me about 2 years off and on. Looking through about 4000 catalogues and lists I've located somewhere in excess of 420 records for the approximately 100 varieties. Tedious - yes, and that is for a series of unique or nearly so coins. If you do a survey of the coins listed above you will have many, many more data points to consider. If you don't get an adequate number the statistics will be meaningless. It isn't just a question of recording the number of times examples of a particular coin come to market, you also have to establish which coin is which to avoid double counting. This is easier with hammered because of the variation in shape and strike, but milled is a nightmare as you only have toning, spots, flaws and other imperfections to rely on when identifying specific coins prior to the introduction of colour catalogues. 50 years or more ago the illustrations were taken from wax impressions, so the first two items above don't apply from before say WW2. You also have to contend with those coins that have been dipped. Welcome to the world of provenances.

Who has access to sufficient reference material other than myself and who is going to do the donkey work? I could do some given the time but it would take an eternity and in any case my library is nowhere near complete. I'm not aware of anyone else on this forum with a large enough library and if there is an individual out there, they are keeping very quiet.

Edited November 2, 2010 by Rob

[£400 for a Penny ? 0]

and what would Freeman call an 1882 "London Mint(?)" penny on his scale?

If I read him correctly, R17.

As for the rest of the rarity scales, as has been said, they are estimates and no more than that - so never meant to be treated as gospel.

[Colin G. 147]

except of course, to those collectors who are looking to purchase simply due to the rarity of a coin!

Why of course

[1887jubilee 37]

and..

That leads me to want to know the comparative rarities of widely different coins from different eras such as 1841halfcrown in high grade vis a vis 1905 high grade, 1922 2nd reverse 1d, 1926 me penny (top grade) , 1726 halfcrown, 1697 crown, 1841 sovereign etc,etc, etc.

Staying away from minor or controversial varieties, how about a top 10 or top 25 grade dependent and then rarest issues in any grade?

Any thoughts?

Freewheels.

I think you will find there are insufficient people with the necessary resources to do such a study. We all have gut feelings for relative rarity, but very little concrete evidence resulting from systematic study. Most of us will do some sort of number crunching in our respective field of interest, but unless the statistics are collected under standardised procedures it will be comparing chalk & cheese.

You shouldn't underestimate the amount of work required to do such a study. I've just completed a study of the Weyl patterns for publication in the BNJ which has taken me about 2 years off and on. Looking through about 4000 catalogues and lists I've located somewhere in excess of 420 records for the approximately 100 varieties. Tedious - yes, and that is for a series of unique or nearly so coins. If you do a survey of the coins listed above you will have many, many more data points to consider. If you don't get an adequate number the statistics will be meaningless. It isn't just a question of recording the number of times examples of a particular coin come to market, you also have to establish which coin is which to avoid double counting. This is easier with hammered because of the variation in shape and strike, but milled is a nightmare as you only have toning, spots, flaws and other imperfections to rely on when identifying specific coins prior to the introduction of colour catalogues. 50 years or more ago the illustrations were taken from wax impressions, so the first two items above don't apply from before say WW2. You also have to contend with those coins that have been dipped. Welcome to the world of provenances.

Who has access to sufficient reference material other than myself and who is going to do the donkey work? I could do some given the time but it would take an eternity and in any case my library is nowhere near complete. I'm not aware of anyone else on this forum with a large enough library and if there is an individual out there, they are keeping very quiet.

Very glad to hear you have finished the weyl paper Rob. Are my pieces R5 R6 or R7?

Edited November 3, 2010 by 1887jubilee

[Rob 3,152]

Very glad to hear you have finished the weyl paper Rob. Are my pieces R5 R6 or R7?

It looks like yours are all unique. I've sent the article off and just need to hear from the editor and referees that everything is ok.