Percentage of remaining pre decimal

[markn]

you guys need a 1922 thread
this is interesting stuff

Is it possible to start a new thread as robbiegal suggests, and then  move relevant posts across?

Yes.  Start the thread and I'll move the posts.

Done.

[autocoupler]

Sorry if this is turning into a bit of a ramble on, but this subject is something I've put some time into over the past decade. Detailed
research carried out by others, and supported by visual evidence, has identified many examples i.e. Wide date, Extra wide date, spike on tail of the 9, left leaning 9, as well as flat and curved base lettering in the reverse legend. There is other research suggesting further differences exist, unfortunately, accessing clear descriptions backed by visual evidence isn't possible.

Over this time I've been able to locate and identify other examples that differ further in date width and numeral alignment, may be they fall into the group that suffers from unclear description. Anyhow, this brings me to the point of the original question of remaining percentages. If a reliable ball park figure ha ha was at hand:dodgy:, I think the remaining numbers of some varieties for the 1922 penny could be considered extremely scarce and rare in better grade. Based on a figure of 5%, for one variety in particular, I believe there could be as few as 500 examples remaining.

Just a follow up on how the figure of 500 remaining examples previously quoted was arrived at. The variety in question is the coin belonging to group 2 of the 1922 penny and referred to in the 1922 Penny thread. Some years ago I did a survey of 1922 pennies listed on ebay. The survey lasted for 14 weeks and 268 London obverse coins were sighted, of which none were from group 2. However, over an overall embracing period of 9 years I know there were 9 coins from group 2 sighted, 8 were on ebay, the other was from a dealer. Lets be a little loose and say all 9 were from the survey, so I figure if a possible 268 coins were hypothetically sighted for every 14 weeks of the 9 year period, it would equate to approx. 9000 coins in total. Knowing that just 9 group 2 coins were sighted in that time, gives a rate of occurrence of 1 in 1000. I know, I hear the jibes about creative accounting, but I reckon the result wouldn't be far off the mark. Now for the easy part.

We all know the total mintage for the 1922 penny was about 12,700,000, of these I think it's generally accepted that 80% are London obverse, giving a total of 10,160,000 Londons. When a remaining pre decimal currency figure of 5% is applied to this, a gestimated 508,000 Londons will remain.  Remembering the rate of occurrence being 1 in 1000 for group 2 coins, this will leave approx. 500 remaining. Works for me:dodgy::cool:

[nealeffendi]

Doesn't work for me. 5% is a rough estimate for all pre decimals, but I reckon that the survival rate for Geo V pennies is higher. I have old survey results from the 1940s and 1950s of pennies and over 50% had survived. By 1965 some of those would have been lost but still a good number would have been around. Several reports from 1965 indicates that most Geo V pennies had been pulled from circulation by collectors. So my guess is that at least 25% had survived to be in collections/hoards. Post '66 the attrition rate would be low. So the remaining number could be a couple of thousand. Still a nice rarity.
For Geo V silver it is probably less than 5% because most was recalled long before collecting became popular.
I'll run my numbers on the various positions in 6-12 months as I have to finish my research on a few other papers before I get to do my '22s.
Still I'm pleased that there are other collectors out there who are as passionate about varieties.

[autocoupler]

Thanks for that Neal. 25% is an awful lot of copper laying around, no wonder the sea's rising :angel: This is all conjectural, 5%, 25%, who knows, and an accurate perspective may never eventuate but it sure is fun to speculate. In my opinion the 1922 pennies were not a favourite, a poor relation so to speak, and I don't believe they were sought after anywhere near like other dates of the Geo V's. My Father was a keen collector back in the early sixties, and like many others of that time, sourced hundreds of pennies from the banks and I know just about all the 22's went back. Many were indeed kept out of circulation, but I doubt if their numbers are in proportion to their comparatively high mintage. I'm guessing a disproportionate number went to the melting pot compared to other Geo V's.
The thing is, for many years now collectors / sellers etc have been syphoning the known wide date varieties from a larger pool out there in hoarder land, and compressing into a much smaller market pool. It's in this smaller pool that we find the coins from Groups 2 and 3 that were in the main unknowingly plucked from the large pool by the noodlers who wrongly thought them to be wide dates. Because of this, when the population numbers are crunched, the rate of occurrence is not truly representative of their scarceness. I suspect  that if it was possible to calculate their rate of occurrence as they sat in the larger hoarder pool, the rarity rating would increase dramatically. Here's food for thought, how about the larger the hoarder pool, the higher the rarity:dodgy: Anyhow, looking  forward to you doing your numbers on this.

[runway]

Interesting topic ... how would anyone know unless a censis ?