"Assessing the Completeness and Quality of a Seated Dollar Collection," Robert A. Izydore, The Gobrecht Journal, published by the Liberty Seated Collectors Club, Volume 30 Issue #90, 27, July, 2004. In recent years it has become popular to quantitatively compare sets of coins assembled by collectors. This has been spearheaded by the advent of the PCGS and NGC registry sets. In Issue #89 Dennis Garstang made a proposal for measuring the quality of a seated dollar collection. Although I am in general agreement with his proposal, I wish to make a few suggestions. Garstang proposes that a Seated dollar set consist of 45 coins, but this does not include Gobrecht dollars. A Seated dollar collection should include Gobrecht dollars to be complete. Historically these coins were considered to be patterns and logically were not included in a collection of regular issues. It is now well established that Gobrecht dollars were regular-issue coins that were placed into circulation. Therefore, they belong in a collection of regular issues. NGC currently requires one 1836-1839 dated Gobrecht dollar for its U.S. Type and Dollar registry sets. LSCC can properly take the lead in prescribing what dates belong in a dollar set. The research done by Gray, Carboneau and others in recent years has shown that the 1836 die alignment I, 1836 die alignment II and IV (and intermediate rotations between these two alignments), and the 1839 original issue dates were released into circulation. Most numismatists agree with these findings. It appears that these three dates belong in the set. There might be some confusion in certain cases in distinguishing originals from restrikes for the 1839 dates, but Gray and Carboneau have published specific guidelines in the Journal for making this determination. It is desirable to consider rarity when calculating the quality of a Seated dollar set. Garstang proposes that the value of each coin for its grade as published monthly in Coin World be used to assign a score for that coin. This would be convenient because the values would be readily available to collectors, but value is not the most accurate measure to use. The rarity of a coin is a function of its supply, and value is a function of both its supply and demand (popularity). Therefore, the popular Carson City issues and others have high values relative to their true rarities. Perhaps a different type of scoring factor can be used which would be more accurate. NGC uses scoring factors for assigning scores to coins in its registry sets, and these are readily available on its web site. The NGC score of a given coin is based on its relative rarity for its date and grade. It takes into account its certified population, market value and other factors. For example, NGC has graded 51 1872-CC dollars and 43 1867 dollars. If we consider the grade of AU-50, there are seven 1872-CC and five 1867 dated coins listed (as of 5-20-04) in their census. In the AU-50 grade NGC assigns a score of 4333 to the 1872-CC date and a score of 1271 to the 1867 date. The ratio of these two scores is 3.409. In contrast Coin World lists in the May 1, 2004 issue of Coin Values AU-50 values for the 1872-CC and 1867 dates of $10,000 and $1,000, respectively. This is a ratio of 10.000. If Coin Dealer Newsletter values are used, the ratio of AU-50 values is 11.083. The NGC scores do take into account market values, but NGC does not state to what extent. It is possible that the grading services have graded a higher percentage of the surviving 1872-CC dollars relative to the percentage of the surviving 1867 dollars, but this is not known. Overall, the NGC scores seem to more accurately gage relative rarity and would be more appropriate to use. |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |