How many 1881-S Morgan dollars in "BU" do you think still exist?

[James_OldeTowne]

I know the grading services have graded tens of thousands of just this date (not to mention it's sisters, 1879-S and 1880-S, and even the 1882-S). Yet despite that, I still see many, many rolls, a lot of them still in bank paper rolls. I'd bet that I have personally seen thousands of such rolls and tubes of just 1881-S dollars.

 

So my question is: how many 1881-S Morgan dollars do you think actually exist, regardless of grade or certification? Have you ever seen a statistical study about this?

[MunkyMan95]

Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? I'd be willing to bet that it's a whole lot.

[BillJones]

I'd say that there are over a million of them.

[zrlevin]

 

One million dollars!

 

[Dcoin]

I have no statistical proof, however it may one of those coins where it’s easier to find in BU then in Circ.

 

Other examples:

 

55 Franklyn

50D Jefferson

 

[cpm9ball]

12.76 million were struck. How many do you think were melted under the Pittman Act? How many more were melted in the late 70's when the Hunt brothers tried to manipulate the silver market and the price skyrocketed?

 

7-8 million? 8-10 million?

 

Chris

[BULLY]

How much silver, gold or platinum could be being melted NOW? Similar to what was happening circa 1980?

 

To so many of us, coins have a much greater value than just their intrinsic value for the precious metal, in the coins made of precious metals that is, but to others? They may see a pile of scrap that could yield a fortune in jewelry perhaps, manufacturing of some kind, the possibilities are endless. I mean there are people (even coin dealers!) who sell "scrap" coins, not truly numismatic quality, but by the pound. Where does one suppose those coins end up? In slabs? In Whitman holders? I have my doubts.

[RWB]

Original bags and picked-over bags (source of "bank wrapped" rolls) exist. Too bad Treasury couldn't have melted a few more 1881-S and not all the 1895-P.

[CHABSENTIA]

Recently I needed to pick up an 1882 S and had problems finding one. There were none offered on EBAY in MS65.Finally found one from a dealer at a reasonable price.

 

 

The 188OS even in MS65 is all over the place. I had a situation where I sent in a Raw 1880S with the VAM 11 for grading. It came back as a VAM 11 MS64 from NGC,

 

I noticed that in the Registry that I got 135 points for it. I was later looking in the HOT 50 Registry and it had 272 points. Figured it was a mistake and wrote "ASK NGC". I had out it in my #2 Registry as I didn't have any other HOT 50 Morgans.

 

NGC replied back that there was no mistake and gave it 272 points or more than double because they wanted to encourage people to showcase the HOT 50 and gave less points for these coins being in a regular registry.

 

I picked up a 1880S MS64 on Ebay for $47.00

 

The 1881 S does not seem to be out there as much as the 1880S but certainly more than the 1882S

 

 

 

[cpm9ball]

NGC replied back that there was no mistake and gave it 272 points or more than double because they wanted to encourage people to showcase the HOT 50 and gave less points for these coins being in a regular registry.

 

 

Whaddayaknow! I guessed right.

 

Chris