What Percent of Coins are Gone Forever?
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 1:32 amI've been meaning to ask about this, but forgot until another posting triggered my memory- so here goes.
I remember hearing that at my grandmother's house they had a flood in the basement and an estimated 5,000 Indian Head pennies were washed away (down the drain). This was well over 50 years ago.
It got me to thinking about ways that coins are lost forever. Here are a few that I thought of:
1) Tornados
2) Tsunamis
3) Earthquakes (to a lesser extent)
4) Hurricanes (could be a biggie for areas with large populations near the coast- a la Puerto Rico a couple years ago)
5) Floods
6) Mountain slides
7) Dates being worn off completely (affected lots of Buffalo nickels and Standing Liberty quarters)
8) Coins being melted down (lots of junk silver was melted from the late 60's until the early 80's)
9) Ships sinking
10) Coins put into hiding places that will never be found (i.e., a single man who doesn't have any friends or family buries something 3 feet underground a half mile from his house and dies the next month)
There are probably a few others that I haven't thought of.
This is a topic I've never really seen addressed anywhere except for someone to say something like "5 million of this date were originally minted. It is estimated that 500k are still in existence."
Has anyone here seen anything published anywhere about this phenomenon along with any estimates of the number of coins remaining? I anxiously await your responses.
I remember hearing that at my grandmother's house they had a flood in the basement and an estimated 5,000 Indian Head pennies were washed away (down the drain). This was well over 50 years ago.
It got me to thinking about ways that coins are lost forever. Here are a few that I thought of:
1) Tornados
2) Tsunamis
3) Earthquakes (to a lesser extent)
4) Hurricanes (could be a biggie for areas with large populations near the coast- a la Puerto Rico a couple years ago)
5) Floods
6) Mountain slides
7) Dates being worn off completely (affected lots of Buffalo nickels and Standing Liberty quarters)
8) Coins being melted down (lots of junk silver was melted from the late 60's until the early 80's)
9) Ships sinking
10) Coins put into hiding places that will never be found (i.e., a single man who doesn't have any friends or family buries something 3 feet underground a half mile from his house and dies the next month)
There are probably a few others that I haven't thought of.
This is a topic I've never really seen addressed anywhere except for someone to say something like "5 million of this date were originally minted. It is estimated that 500k are still in existence."
Has anyone here seen anything published anywhere about this phenomenon along with any estimates of the number of coins remaining? I anxiously await your responses.
