loosely used term

As I become more of an experienced numismatist I am constantly learning and reading on the hobby. One topic or word that continues to get under my skin is the use of the word "RARE".

This word has come particularly into light recently with the SAE variety of the 2008 with the 2007 reverse. The coin has a reported mintage of 47,000 pieces...to put this into perspective let's look at a few US coin series. A mintage of 47,000 would place a coin 15th out of 27th most common in the 3 cent nickel series, ..it would be one of the most common of the Early commems also. The Sheldon rarity scale would place the mintage at Rarity 17 on a 25 scale (with rarity 1 being a one of a kind and a rarity of 25 being a billion+)...not exactly rare--or even scarce for that matter. I'm not saying that the rocketing prices are not justified or will continue to rise--the SAE's are hugely popular/beautiful and 47,000 divided among all the collectors of the series is not enough for e1 to have one.

I looked up some of the mintages of my world coins in my High Seas signature set and was surprised to find that about 60% are of a lower mintage...many with less than 1000 and a few even less than 100 !!!

I think two things drive this mania...one being a psychological aspect--not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to "get in early" on what may be a windfall--( I've done this myself by hoarding away 5 of the 1995 W proofs in my safe deposit box)..primarily I believe it's about demand.

My low mintage world coins just don't have a huge market. I may someday sell and would never get the money for some of these 500 mintage coins that my 30,000+ minted 1995 SAE's will command.

Surfing on ebay if I typed in "rare" for a keyword search I could find anything from 1881-S morgans to multi-million struck coins of almost any series. I guess the reason it bugs me is because as a true hobbyist I believe that the terms that are unique to our hobby have a particular meaning and shouldn't be used arbitrarily.--Another one that bugs me is "gem" which is supposed to be MS65 or better..but I'll leave that rant for another day.

My personal collecting is out of balance..I can't seem to stop buying during this little downturn in prices...and consequently I now have about 200 coins that I'd like to get encapsulated..I'm thinking of applying for a dealer membership so I can submit them all at once at the reduced dealer submission rate...or seeing if any of my local dealers will submit them for me at a slight discount.

I can't believe I still haven't gotten my tax return or stimulus checks from the IRS..I wonder how they would respond if I sent them a notice with calculated interest and a penalty for late payment...hehehehe..I don't think that would go over too well..anyhow, no returns means that my hunt for my final Walker--the 41-S --is still on hold...

here's a picture of another of my favorites..a pretty, little gold coin with a sloop from Bermuda..mintage of this "rare" variety is less than 500...there were 10,000 minted with a "chi" mintmark but a small handful had none..a lucky find..NGC PF69UCAM-finest known