How many coins are out there?

jasonscoins · Jan 13, 2014

Okay, so I've been reading different things about silver coins and how a great percentage were melted down (I believe in the early 80s) and it was kind of depressing. Also, for every person on this board that coin roll hunts, there are probably 1,000 more doing the same thing who are not on this board. It got me to thinking how many coins are still out there to be found. Granted, I know the number will be constantly changing with people plucking them and then some coming back into circulation. I was just curious to see an estimate of how many silver coins (war nicks, dimes, quarters, halves and dollars) you guys think are still lurking in the wild. My personal opinion is several hundred million. Does that seem high or low? Thoughts?

maverick · Jan 13, 2014

Not many, we found them all allready, all of us on here a pretty much going to just stop searching :laughing7:

. HH, Maverick.

maverick · Jan 13, 2014

In all honesty, that is a very hard question to answer. As you said, it changes all the time.

1more4me · Jan 13, 2014

For every new Silver hunter that enters the hobby- There is another old lady dumps her dearly departed husbands coin collection- and the cycle of CRH begins anew...

There is probably only 26 truly free 90%ers that will never be tamed- the other 249,500,329 just keep recycling...
PEACE

Iamrussell · Jan 13, 2014

Once TimZim gets back FT crh there wont be many halves left ;-)

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just keep stacking, just keep stacking, stacking stacking stacking

jasonscoins · Jan 13, 2014

Come on -- just throw a guess out there. Of course, nobody knows for sure. But if you had to give and estimate, what would you say? I say between 100 and 200 million. That seems like a lot, but if you look at all the silver coins that have been produced over time, it may be realistic. I may be too optimistic, that's why I'm wondering what you guys think.

MIhunter · Jan 13, 2014

jasonscoins said:
Come on -- just throw a guess out there. Of course, nobody knows for sure. But if you had to give and estimate, what would you say? I say between 100 and 200 million. That seems like a lot, but if you look at all the silver coins that have been produced over time, it may be realistic. I may be too optimistic, that's why I'm wondering what you guys think.

No way to know
Original Mintage numbers are published
How many silver coin have been melted? Unknown

Infowarrior · Jan 13, 2014

Last year, I was curious about this as well... I did some math and figured out how much silver was minted...

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/332125-wow-theres-alot-silver-out-there.html

I figured out that 2.4 BILLION OUNCES were minted since the late 1800's...

Thats alotta silver!!

Dozer D · Jan 13, 2014

Just thinking about the quantity of the 1.5 dimes per box that I averaged in 2013, comes out to a mere .0006% (that six-thousandants of one percent) per box. Now if you apply that fraction to all the clad produced years (1965-2013 P & D's: excluding Proofs)as if it was say 100,000,000,000 (billion) @ .0006% = only 60,000,000 AG dimes remaining in circulation as of today. But one must remember that the silver quantities are being reduced daily by us CRHers.

I'll work up the numbers using current Red Book production quantities. Should be interesting to see what comes up as the answer.

jasonscoins · Jan 13, 2014

Dozer D said:
Just thinking about the quantity of the 1.5 dimes per box that I averaged in 2013, comes out to a mere .0006% (that six-thousandants of one percent) per box. Now if you apply that fraction to all the clad produced years (1965-2013 P & D's: excluding Proofs)as if it was say 100,000,000,000 (billion) @ .0006% = only 60,000,000 AG dimes remaining in circulation as of today. But one must remember that the silver quantities are being reduced daily by us CRHers.
I'll work up the numbers using current Red Book production quantities. Should be interesting to see what comes up as the answer.

If there are 60 million dimes still out there, then I would guess there would likely be around 25-35 million halves and maybe 5-10 million quarters and maybe 35-45 million war nicks. Also, let's say there are 1-2 million random silver dollars still out there. That's probably about 120-140 million silver coins still out there. Who knows?

Mackaydon · Jan 13, 2014

I'm still estimating; I'll get back to you soon.

BuffaloBoy · Jan 13, 2014

Over 9000

Iamrussell · Jan 13, 2014

BuffaloBoy said:
Over 9000

You sure about that buffaloboy? Lol

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just keep stacking, just keep stacking, stacking stacking stacking

Silver Worm · Jan 13, 2014

I once read that there is more money in the ground than above the ground...

baddbluff · Jan 13, 2014

Silver Worm said:
I once read that there is more money in the ground than above the ground...

There was, until Ted Binion was murdered & his girlfriend's lover dug up all his silver dollars from that desert vault. Now they are all in NGC holders!

gravityrules · Jan 13, 2014

Check out this link about one CRHer's find rates for various nickels, it's an interesting read. You can see his method for predicting how many of various years or series might still be in circulation.

Nickel Find Rates @ 260,000 Coins - Coin Community Forum

I have also read that there are more coins 'lost' than there are in circulation. I'm not sure if those mini-hoards of coins that many people have stashed away count as 'in circulation' or not. I expect the Fed has an official inventory number of coins that they hold in the Federal Reserve system (they are on the books as an asset) and they know the rate at which they release coinage. It's more difficult to predict the rate at which coins are lost, destroyed, or hoarded.

We've had mintage figures in the billions for cents for 50+ years, you would think the mint could take a few years off on the cents and there would still be no shortage of cents in circulation.

BRChiver · Jan 14, 2014

Infowarrior said:
Last year, I was curious about this as well... I did some math and figured out how much silver was minted...

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/332125-wow-theres-alot-silver-out-there.html

I figured out that 2.4 BILLION OUNCES were minted since the late 1800's...

Thats alotta silver!!

Well you have to subtract the 1.4 Billion ounces I have in my vaults..... :laughing7:

HH!
BRChiver

foiler · Jan 15, 2014

Between 1960 and 1964 over 3.5 BILLION dimes were minted. That's one coin in a 5 year period. Keep huntin' boy, ya might put a dent in that mountain someday.

gravityrules · Jan 15, 2014

jasonscoins said:
If there are 60 million dimes still out there, then I would guess there would likely be around 25-35 million halves and maybe 5-10 million quarters and maybe 35-45 million war nicks. Also, let's say there are 1-2 million random silver dollars still out there. That's probably about 120-140 million silver coins still out there. Who knows?

FWIW, in the nickel analysis that I previously mentioned, the poster estimated 18 million war nickels still in circulation.

GMan00001 · Jan 15, 2014

Here is a link to my original analysis on the subject posted a few years back.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/33129-what-left-circulation.html

I know I have posted other variations since, but I don't feel like searching for those as this one was easy to find.