[The following excerpt is published courtesy of DLRC Press and its author, David Lawrence. This information was originally published in 1994 in The Complete Guide to Barber Quarters.]
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Estimating Scarcity
As every coin collector knows, scarcity is not always consistent with original mintage figures. Over the years some dates get lost, melted or, like the first year of issue, saved more than others. Later years of a series also tend to get preserved in higher grades. Since there is no way of making a direct count of each date and mintmark we must look to other sources for an estimate. Our first reference is the initial mintage, followed by values established over the years. After that, there are PCGS, NGC and ANACS population/census reports for mint state coins and collector demand for circulated grades. Another good estimate can be made by noting the frequency that dates appear on “want lists.” Finally, as a dealer specializing in Barber coinage, I have a good idea of how often I have encountered a scarce date and grade over the years.
The certified populations of mint state coins are not perfect because some coins are submitted more than once and others have not yet been submitted to the grading services. However, this is still the best estimate we have ever had of the relative scarcity of these dates. Among other things, the population/census reports tell us that most Barbers are far scarcer than the vast majority of the more recent issues. The populations are tabulated in Appendix B.
Unfortunately, we cannot quantify rarity ratings for Barber quarters with either an estimate of actual numbers or the number of appearances in the marketplace. These ratings should be taken as a relative estimate among the series. In this book, rarity ratings are defined as follows.
R1 — Common
R2 — A slightly better date
R3 — A better date
R4 — Scarce
R5 — Very Scarce
R6 — Extremely scarce
R7 — Rare
