What Is The Magic Number?

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

I've been thinking about what makes a coin scarce.

 

It seems to me that for a coin to be difficult to find, somewhere less than 200 need to be made. Of course, time also factors into it. However, I think that if a coin was released today, 200 were minted, and the limit was set to one coin per cacher, then all cachers wanting the coin would likely be able to get one.

 

What do folks think is the *magic* number.

 

(of course, I know there are runs of 1500 coins that have sold out, but are they really hard to get now? Are there folks with multiples that are trading them?)

[+AtlantaGal]

100-150 of any coin makes it rare in my book. This is just my opinion. State coins with runs of 300 coins or less would be very rare also.

Edited September 15, 2005 by AtlantaGal

[+Renegade Knight]

500 is sold out in hours.

 

Scarece is also a function of demand over supply. If everone hates a particular coin so it's always on their available for trade list it won't matter if there are 50 of it. But if it's desireable for any reason 1500 may still be hard to find.

 

Time will tell as more and more caches like coins.

[+badlands]

With the way this sport is growing, I would think that runs of 1K will be hard to get very soon.

[+IceCreamMan]

There are a lot of factors that go into this. On the supply side of the equation, anything less that 300 seems to be pretty rare, but if it is a coin that is in demand by non-collectors, such as a trackable commemorative coin, higher volume mintings can be just as rare. How it is distributed is an issue as well. Any coin that can be had simply by clicking a few icons on Paypay will not tend to be as sought after as a coin that was never sold to the general public. We have a local cacher with a personal coin coming out. He sold some but managed to sell all he wanted to sell just among the local community. Most of who are not collectors but who will treasure his coin. Though he did, I think, 300 coins, there will likely only be 100 or so ever available to the community at large, and then mostly by trade. And of course it helps to have a cool looking coin.

[+blazerfan]

100 right now makes a coin almost unatainable (as can be seen by the MIGO coins... I know I don't have them). Of course geography plays a part as well.

 

We could come up with a rarity scale for geocoins. My book of Oregon Trade Tokens has 7 rarity levels... R-7 is the Rarest... R-1 common. R-7 in the token book is actually Unique meaning 1 known example. So maybe an R-7 geocoin would be like the GD Mystery coin.

 

R-7 - Fewer than 100

R-6 - 100 - 199

R-5 - 200 - 399

R-4 - 400 - 699

R-3 - 700 - 999

R-2 - 1000 - 1499

R-1 - 1500+

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

This scale is similar to Postal Cancellation collecting -- (known "strikes"). Some Post Offices were only open for a few months ever (Gold Rush especially) and their cancellations are extremely rare (R-7)

 

The main reason I ask is that I like to know to some extent what I am trading for. My preference is personal for personal.

 

I had an origianal series Moun10Bike that I traded for a regualar Alaska -- was that a good deal?

 

 

 

 

(just joking )

[+Spencersb]

Darn, I thought I'd finally found a buyer for that piece of swampland!

 

Blazerfan, thanks for the rating system! That gives me an idea what we should shoot for when ordering our 2006 GOWT coin.

[+Team Shydog]

Good rating system. I hope this is used in the future here in the wild world of geocoins.

[+graylling]

I think it would be easy to make that a standard. After all we are the ones collecting and valuating the coins so we can use it or not as we want. What say?? Make it a quasi official rating system for geocoins?