The die variety and attrition.

[coppercoins]

Attrition is the process of something "going away" by cause - in this case, coins being lost to destruction by circulation, etc.

Has anyone ever considered the factors that determine the value of a die variety, then tried to work out why some are more valuable than others and/or tried to assign a value to a die variety because of the factors? Here are the basic steps:

1. Mintage - In this case, a study of specimens from the die to try determining how many were made by looking at die wear and assuming how many coins the die struck by looking at the wear on the presumed latest strike.

2. Population - By figuring how many were minted, determine how many are still out there according to how old the coin is, how noticeable the die variety is, and when the die variety was first known.

3. Desirability - Based on the number of collectors who would want an example compared to the number that have survived.

Value would be predicated by all of these factors in some combination - What would that combination be?

[cladking]

I've looked at these factors as they relate to other varieties such as underreported clad varities. The most difficult factor though is a variety's popularity with date/mm collectors. If they collect it then even fairly common coins can become quite valuable. Even among those who collect varieties there are many who just collect certain types or ones that catch their fancy. This makes prediction of price to be far more difficult than estimation or prediction of populations.

I, personally, collect everything by variety. To me any coin struck by an undamaged identifiable die is of great interest and has as much right in my collection as a different mint mark or date. Though the amount I'm willing to spend for a variety is strongly influenced by supply and demand.

[Robert]

Has anyone ever attempted to collect a given year by die? If a die can be positively identified somehow (location of mint mark, polishing marks, etc) at least a partial set may be possible to some degree.

Things like die cracks, chips could be tracked but I'm not sure you could positively ID which die became cracked, say, on a P mint cent.

That would be a huge job, but so was Eliasberg's quest to collect one of each US coin.

How many dies were used in say 1960D? Twenty thousand? I really don't know.

[cladking]

Funny you should ask. Funnier you should mention 60-D. I was entertained by the 60-D bar nickels. These were coins that had die damage between the date and the rim causing little "bars" to appear over the numbers and "LIBERTY". Something possessed me to try to form a collection of all the different combinations of "bars". Of course this coin also appears with different design elements reengraved so each bar had to be found with each combination of doubling. The collection was getting pretty big before I realized that I was just assembling a die collection for this coin (and with die states no less). I don't work on the set much anymore but it's up to about 150 coins. There were a few hundred dies used for nickels that year and around 75 are probably in the collection.

If you have the patience then die differences can be spotted on almost any two unc coins. It's much easier if they are early strikes though. Be sure to get them from different sources or you're likely to get two from the same die.

[coppercoins]

I never really entertained the idea of trying to identify every die used for a specific denomination for a given year, but I'm sure it is possible. As for how many were used, I'm not sure of that either, but I am sure some of them would be quite rare....otherwise completely normal coins, when assembled by die, you could end up pulling all your hair out before coming close to a complete set - and them again, you'd never know IF you had a complete set.

[Bob P]

In actuality, there are records maintained on how many dies were used on a specific denomination, and for a specific year. The US mint does maintain those records, but will not necessarily release that information to the general public.
Since each and every die needs to be accounted for, then the record keeping was mandatory. Whenever a die was pulled from service, it was identified as such.
I have had some luck just asking the mint for info sometimes and talking to their Customer Care folks. They are usually very friendly and will direct your questions to the appropriate office.
If you would like to try and just ask them if that info can be obtained, write them at:

U.S. Mint
Customer Care Center
801 9th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20220

Bob P

[cladking]

Most, if not all, of the annual reports for the mint between 1978 and 1998 list the number of dies made for each denomination. You can get an idea of the average number of strikes from such data.