Rarity index for individual years

32 posts

This message aims at: suggesting an idea to improve Numista

Status: Rejected
Upvotes: 28
Downvotes: 0

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Dear members,

Did you notice that rarity index is combined indicator of rarity for a whole series of coins, ranging from first until the last strike year? This index is only a rough indicator of rarity, because there can be big differences between years regarding rarity.

So, I propose introducing in this catalogue the more precise index of rarity: rarity for each year separately. That way we will have more accurate indicator of rarity and thereby of value of our coins.

If you are supporting this idea about improving the catalogue, please write your comment here. Or, at least, vote for this suggestion.

If there is any way we can help to administrators in this project, let they notify us. If we can not help in technical aspects, at least we can do is to support our admins by giving a symbolic donation.

I'm sure that this improvement will attract more members.
I think it would be an improvement to get rid of rarity altogether.
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
Just a comment: I don't collect by years and don't have my main list of coins on Numista. Therefore I often simply mark the first year of the coin I have. I don't know how many people do the same, but this can significantly disfigure such index
Medieval sets for swap:https://en.numista.com/forum/topic140941.html

My personal list of scammers from Numista: erniemix, yvain, CassTaylor
Proposal noted, I will ask Xavier to look at this. :)
Catalogue administrator
I agree with Oklahoman that it would be best to just end rarity. It is totally meaningless and inconsistent.

Will
I would like to see for all coins / tokens / medals the number of people who own each year.
Referees can already see that for their Referee countries so why not give this opportinity for everyone.
If you like coins, medals and tokens with ship motives follow my new instagram account with regular updates @numisnautiker
From time to time I sell some coins on Ebay make sure to follow me @apuking on Ebay.
Quote: "apuking"​I would like to see for all coins / tokens / medals the number of people who own each year.
​Referees can already see that for their Referee countries so why not give this opportinity for everyone.
I have been saying the same thing for a year. You can come up with your own rarity number by how many people own the coin in each year. It should be easy for ​Xavier to do as referees can see it. Probably only one little setting to change.
Thank you all for supporting this idea!

This way we can get very valuable informations about rarity (and value) of coins. If the admins succeed in this job, they can put on home page the information about this improvement. Something like this: "New, precise index of rarity now available. Estimate the value of your coin more accurately!" I'm sure this will attract more members. Everybody wants to know the rarity of his specific coin, and not of whole series. And, the more members, the more coins will be in the database of the catalogue. Thereby, the index of rarity will be more and more valid...

Let us make this catalogue the best one on the internet!
Quote: "apuking"​I would like to see for all coins / tokens / medals the number of people who own each year.
​Referees can already see that for their Referee countries so why not give this opportinity for everyone.
​Yes, please!
Quote: "apuking"​I would like to see for all coins / tokens / medals the number of people who own each year.
​Referees can already see that for their Referee countries so why not give this opportinity for everyone.
​+1
+1

Another problem w/ the rarity index is for some rare coins (e.g. Flowing Hair Dollars), we have less-knowledgeable people who happen to own fake coins, coming on and inputting them into their collection, which is why coins that cost millions sometimes have rarity index values in the 60s and 70s.
Also people that have a counterfeit coin will list it as owned. Then put a comment that it is fake. That will also change the rarity number.
Coins that are counterfeit a lot should have a date line added "fake". That way the true date will show the rarity correctly.
Quote: "Adrijan"​Dear members,

​Did you notice that rarity index is combined indicator of rarity for a whole series of coins, ranging from first until the last strike year? This index is only a rough indicator of rarity, because there can be big differences between years regarding rarity.

​So, I propose introducing in this catalogue the more precise index of rarity: rarity for each year separately. That way we will have more accurate indicator of rarity and thereby of value of our coins.

​If you are supporting this idea about improving the catalogue, please write your comment here. Or, at least, vote for this suggestion.

​If there is any way we can help to administrators in this project, let they notify us. If we can not help in technical aspects, at least we can do is to support our admins by giving a symbolic donation.

​I'm sure that this improvement will attract more members.

Hey Adrijan

I fully understand an interest in determining the rarity and value of coins we own.

However the collections on Numista are only a very thin slice of the numismatic collections of the world - probably insufficient data to really make a rarity assessment. Even the professional grading companies have trouble tracking graded coins due to resubmissions etc.

I suggest mintage figures as the best available indicator of rarity but not value. My observation is that coin values are driven by demand and marketing. Its more complicated to find a value because it takes research of completed sales and catalogs. And then to receive that value requires a buyer that agrees with the valuation. ;)

I picked up a beautiful EF Mexico 5 centavos 1887 Ho G with what appears to be a doubled die obverse for $10 yesterday.. mintage 20k. I suspect its survival rate is very low. The high demand Lincoln cent 1909 s vdb with 484,000 mintage goes for more than $1000 in EF. But I will never see that valuation for my humble, beautiful, ten times more interesting and 24X scarce coin. But its my treasure for the moment. Got my own internal collector's yahoo moment! But my point here - rarity is not value. Collector's demand is value.

So I like the rarity indicator as is. Its sort of like a weather indicator for type rarity - which is valuable/interesting to me. A nifty idea by whomever programmed it.

Regards

Dan
Quote: "ken6528"​Also people that have a counterfeit coin will list it as owned. Then put a comment that it is fake. That will also change the rarity number.
​Coins that are counterfeit a lot should have a date line added "fake". That way the true date will show the rarity correctly.
​Exactly Ken!

Although I'm not sure whether the fake line should be added at all, not adding it would just allow a rookie to continue to list their fakes in the catalogue, affecting the index... and adding it wouldn't deter those who stubbornly refuse to believe/don't know their coin is fake from doing so.
Fakes are no coins! Adding year lines for fakes is a bigger problem than an affected rarity index.
Quote: "Essor Prof"​Fakes are no coins! Adding year lines for fakes is a bigger problem than an affected rarity index.
​+1
Quote: "Coinman48"​I agree with Oklahoman that it would be best to just end rarity. It is totally meaningless and inconsistent.

​Will
​Rarity is one of the greatest tools this site has. Example:
Krause says the coin is valued at $0.10 and there were 10,000,000 copies. Must be junk and easy to find, right?
But the Numista Rarity is 67, and there is only one member offering the coin for swap. Does that change your mind? It should!
It would only indicate rarity if every collector had to use Numista. The rarity indicator on this website is no indicator of rarity. It only indicates how many of something users of this website have. I have tons of coins with ridiculous Numista rarity numbers that no dealer in there right mind would pay more than the bare minimum for. Now if this rarity scale followed the mintage total and not the Numista population total then it would be a valid and useful rarity scale. But as such I am at a loss that anyone thinks it is worthwhile as it just measures what is here on the site and not the whole numismatic world.
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
^^^
Rarity, like politics, is a sensitive subject (to the point of silliness) for many here, and there is virtually nothing we can say to change each other's minds. But here goes:

I suspect a very low percentage of us on Numista are dealers. I suspect a relatively much higher percentage of us are on this site to trade with other members here, thus making Rarity quite useful for type swappers. Note the name "NUMISTA" Rarity Index, not "whole numismatic world rarity index." Very valid if you're not swapping with the whole world, and in fact, an indicator of type rarity on this website. It can be easily ignored by those who don't like it, the rest of us can do with it what we wish.
A rarity scale ought to follow a standard of rarity. New collectors should not have to come here and then discover that a rarity scale used here has nothing to do with any rarity scale in common use in the numismatic world. Rarity scales can be valuable. And they can be dangerous and deceitful to new ones. Especially when a false or limited rarity is guaged. Im all for a valid rarity scale that educates and doesn't screw people around. Several exist and in other threads have been proposed. You realize that any person can go to a listing and claim to own ridiculous numbers of coins and can then screw the fake rarity scale on this site even further than it is. That right there should be enough to get rid of it. If Numista would adopt a scale linked to mintages and survival rates it would still be imperfect, but would be better than what's in place now. In fact, a drop box could be made for the rarity of each date of a listing rather than a fake rarity like we have now which gives a coin in the thousands the same rarity as a coin in the multi millions just because they are on the same page. A scale has a place on Numista. But the one on Numista is dangerous and easily manipulated in a fraudulent manner. I will always argue for an improvement over whats in place now. Ethic demands it.
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
^^^
Classic silly.
(No offense taken by this deplorable.)
Yes. Silly. So much more for us to agree on.
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
I’m happy to see that you changed your one-sentence highly emotional response (that I replied “silly” to) with a valid useful argument.

Unfortunate that you chose to delete your initial response and eliminate the evidence. You won’t see the same trick from me. My lesson here is to always quote the silliness. But my memory is “strong like bull” and I remember almost precisely what was written: “The moment rarity is removed, it will instantly class up this site.” Emotional and silly.

Back to the real subject. Thanks again for a well-intentioned and valid response. I agree with a majority of what you said the second time around.
I was just trying to not sound like it was anything more than the hydrocodone I am taking for my wisdom teeth surgery. I realize that since I do not swap, all you swappers can use/misuse the fake rarity scale on here all you want too. And you were also right, those of us who understand the concept of a rarity scale can just overlook it like we already do. In fact, if you look at my time stamp I am sure I changed my post at close to the time you made your observation that I was being silly. If I had noticed your response I would have left mine. I tend to post, read, edit repost, edit until it looks good. I can see how that makes me look "silly" in this case. There was no intent to be tricky. The rarity scale is tricky enough without me adding to the mix. :`
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
Defining rarity is like trying to shepherd cats.

A rare coin for a country the size of the US would have a mintage large enough to be considered very common in say Switzerland. At first glance then it would seem possible to arrive at a "scarcity value" by dividing the mintage by the population. But.... not so fast. There's the fact that coins from 50 years ago served a much smaller population. So.... maybe we could input the known or estimated population for each year? Well apart from being a shit-ton of effort it still won't work. How do you factor in such things as the current trend of using plastic instead of money and it's impact on the mintage needs? While we as collectors recognise design changes with separate catalog numbers, mintmasters generally don't so it's very common to find a single figure for ALL coins struck that year. Even worse, in some examples the same figure is used for both versions of the coin, doubling the actual number struck. Crazy innit?

Mintage figures are often unreliable or in the case of more secretive regimes, never published. They don't take into account subsequent recalls as in the case of the millions of Morgan Dollars smelted due to the Pittman Act. There are also examples where an entire mintage was lost during wartime, like the Cyprus issues which went to a watery grave when the transport was sunk. There's also no way to measure the rate at which the number of surviving examples decays. (actually there is, but only for very specific coins, see below)

We should clarify a particular canard which is frequently being circulated as gospel truth, often by people who ought to know better. Namely, that collector demand influences rarity. The **** it does! It influences price and that's all. Now maybe you could argue that it impacts the threshold at which a coin may be considered scarce or even occasionally rare. But, even this can't be applied universally.

Could you draw some conclusions based on the estimated number of collectors in a given country? Again, not really. Let's use India as an example because it was the subject of an interesting discussion recently on a similar theme. It has a huge population and is one of the few bright spots on the numismatic landscape as far as new collector interest. Demand is further bolstered by collectors from other countries, notably British collectors eager for pre 1947 coins. A coin with an original mintage of 250,000 ought to be well over the scarce threshold and on it's way to being rare. In contrast, a Caribbean island issued silver plated proof special collectors issue with a mintage of 25,000 would more than suffice to meet the limited demand. (while proofreading I see I've not explained this very well, I hope it's understandable)

Some years ago those nice chaps who gave us the not so nice Sheldon Scale for grading coins turned their attention to the question of rarity. They came up with the Universal Rarity Scale which assigned a R# (R1-R20) based on mintages. It's a very simplistic approach and can't be applied to all coins or even to other countries but it was a step in the right direction. Sadly, hardly anyone has heard of it today's world of "pop numismatics" and even fewer use it.

After many years of trying to work out a way to define what makes a rare coin I've come to the regrettable conclusion that it's just not possible. So does this mean we should give up and follow the ebay path where every coins is XXX rare? Not at all, there are some things we can do.

For a start, let's try real hard to bring back those two magical words "uncommon" and "scarce". Rare is probably the most overused word in Numismatics. Outside of disreputable ebay sellers, the biggest offender is Numista. Does anyone really believe that a coin with a mintage in excess of a million can be considered "very rare"? These silly and misleading tags lower the credibility of the entire site. I've been trying to have them removed ever since I arrived here and yet they remain.

Every experienced collector understands instinctively what is and is not rare, even if we can't precisely explain it. Perhaps we should be leading by example and thinking long and hard before misrepresenting rarity in the hope of getting a better price from a novice? A 1933 penny is very rare, a 1926ME is rare, 1950 and 1951 are scarce and the 1953 is just humbly uncommon. You know this, so quit yer sinning.

During the 1960s a pretty widespread survey was done in England on the population of pennies still circulating in those final years before decimalization. While the results were interesting and happily coincide with my own observations, the real value is that it allowed us to make educated guesses on many previously unanswered questions. At what rate do coins struck in any particular year vanish from circulation? For me, the most useful thing is that it settled the debate over the rarity of several famous varieties, in particular where there was no separate mintage figure available. If you ever see a reference to the estimated number of 1902LT or 1926ME coins, well that's where it came from. It was followed by a similar project for US cents perhaps 15 years ago but the last time I checked on the progress it seems to have been abandoned.

So the information is out there, waiting for a new generation with sharper minds and eyes. The words "mintage unknown" should have no place in our small world. Quit eating tide pods and git to it.

The Numista Rarity Index? Oh, that's just a harmless bit of fun. It's a nice feeling when you see your name in splendid isolation in the bit where it says MEMBERS WHO WISH TO SWAP THIS COIN. I'd leave it alone but put a disclaimer at the top to prevent sketchy vendors from using screenshots and NUMISTA RARITY INDEX OF 87!!!!!!! type scams.
Non illegitimis carborundum est.  Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!  
Quote: "pnightingale"​Defining rarity is like trying to shepherd cats. ​
​It can be done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8 :P
Quote: "nthn"
Quote: "pnightingale"​Defining rarity is like trying to shepherd cats. ​
​​
​​It can be done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8 :P
I'll be damned.... OK, nailing jello to the ceiling then.
Non illegitimis carborundum est.  Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!  
Lol...that is so funny!
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
It's a head scratcher isn't it!8)
          'We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.'
                                                      Sir Winston Churchill
Quote: "gyoschak"​Unfortunate that you chose to delete your initial response and eliminate the evidence.
​If you want to "save evidence" you just have to use the "quote" button. This way, even if the previous message is edited, you'll have your "evidence". ;)
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Banknote referee for: AGO, AZE, BLR, ECS, GEO, HTI, KAZ, KGZ, KOR, MNG, MRT, PMR, PRK, ROK, SWE, TJK, TKM, TUR, UZB, WSM, ZWE
see also here https://en.numista.com/forum/topic66705.html

a ridiculous index not even worth its name.

Let's get rid of it, the sooner, the better.

Ole
Globetrotter
Coin varieties in French:
https://monnaiesetvarietes.numista.com
See: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic75639.html

I don't believe a NRI per year line would be meaningful, especially if you start comparing the NRI of year lines across different coins. Instead, I would prefer giving indication of how many people own each year line. This was requested here: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic72983.html
Status changed to Rejected (Xavier, 8-Feb-2019, 13:52)

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