I would love to know whether there is any information on approximately how many, say Indian cents and Buffalo nickels, are still around. I think more than 3 billion Indian cents were minted, but of this, you'd have to think some are lost forever, some were mutilated and removed by the US Mint (how often does that occur, as I see mutilated modern coins all the time in circulation still). There is also a lot of discussion about silver coins being melted in the 1980s. Very, very few of these obsolete coins are still in circulated coinage- probably 1 Buffalo nickel per every several $100 in nickels. Maybe 1 Indian cent per every $1000 in Lincoln cents. Almost never see a Mercury dime in circulation. So I would think "still in circulation" would account for a very small fraction of the surviving obsolete coins
Are there any data on what % of the total obsolete coins survive to this day? The obsolete coins are in the hands of dealers and private collectors.
I'm just thinking about this issue and wondering whether such information if it is available could be helpful in understanding where there might be some coin types that are actually much rarer than appreciated.
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