How many have survived?

[slack]

Hi all, I have a fairly grubby 1849 shieldback sovereign (full) I've read 1755333 were created but i wondered if it was possible to find a rough estimate of how many may have survived the ravages of time, is that at all possible?

Edited February 12, 2023 by slack

[Petra]

11 minutes ago, slack said:

Hi all, I have a fairly grubby 1849 shieldback sovereign (full) I've read 175533 were created but i wondered if it was possible to find a rough estimate of how many may have survived the ravages of time, is that at all possible?

Doubt it, massive numbers sent to the USA and melted down, plus being out of circulation and melted down here over the years

[Zhorro]

2 hours ago, slack said:

Hi all, I have a fairly grubby 1849 shieldback sovereign (full) I've read 175533 were created but i wondered if it was possible to find a rough estimate of how many may have survived the ravages of time, is that at all possible?

I think your number may be incorrect.  According to the latest edition of Marsh (p.91), 1,755,399 were minted.  The basic coin is rated "R", but with a Roman I instead of 1 it is rated R3.

[Britannia47]

2 hours ago, slack said:

Hi all, I have a fairly grubby 1849 shieldback sovereign (full) I've read 175533 were created but i wondered if it was possible to find a rough estimate of how many may have survived the ravages of time, is that at all possible?

Marsh 32/32A has a R/R3 Rating. Mintage was actually over 1 million - 1,755,399, so worth checking again. How ‘fairly grubby’ is it ?!……

Whoops, Zhorro just beat me to it☺️

Edited February 11, 2023 by Britannia47

[slack]

1 hour ago, Britannia47 said:

Marsh 32/32A has a R/R3 Rating. Mintage was actually over 1 million - 1,755,399, so worth checking again. How ‘fairly grubby’ is it ?!……

Whoops, Zhorro just beat me to it☺️

Ahh thank you, I didn't have the exact figure to hand so made a rough guess at the last 2 numbers in the sequence, I should have added 'aprox' after my figure. Your info is Intresting thank you, the condition of the coin for its age is not bad looking at all, but far from perfect, if I recall correctly it is considered to be 'fine plus' the shield side looks pretty good with obvious wear but as usual young Victoria's head shows quite a bit of wear especially in the hair band area and the fine curls of her hair are well worn and the fields are dulled.

[sovereignsteve]

Worn, underweight sovereigns were constantly being taken out of circulation at the bank level and sent to the BoE for exchange for newer, full weight coins. It is impossible to know how many have survived, only an estimated comparison made against other years by observation in real life scenarios.

[Roy]

It's not approximate at all!

They made millions, not hundreds of thousands, that year. 

Easy mistake 😋

[Foster88]

Many have undoubtedly been melted down.

How many? Well, it’s like asking how long is a piece of string.

I think older sovereign mintage figures should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As an example, the 1924 Melbourne sovereign had a mintage of 278,140 and the 1924 Perth sovereign had a mintage of 1,464,416. Yet the 1924 Melbourne sovereign appears much more often than the 1924 Perth sovereign despite the mintage difference.

We will never truly know which of any year, type or variety will have been lost or melted down.

[slack]

3 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

Worn, underweight sovereigns were constantly being taken out of circulation at the bank level and sent to the BoE for exchange for newer, full weight coins. It is impossible to know how many have survived, only an estimated comparison made against other years by observation in real life scenarios.

Thank you, that's very much the information I was looking for, much appreciated and best wishes to you

[slack]

3 hours ago, Roy said:

It's not approximate at all!

They made millions, not hundreds of thousands, that year. 

Easy mistake 😋

Quite right, good of you to take the time to point out my glaring mistake, best wishes to you 

[slack]

3 hours ago, Foster88 said:

Many have undoubtedly been melted down.

How many? Well, it’s like asking how long is a piece of string.

I think older sovereign mintage figures should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As an example, the 1924 Melbourne sovereign had a mintage of 278,140 and the 1924 Perth sovereign had a mintage of 1,464,416. Yet the 1924 Melbourne sovereign appears much more often than the 1924 Perth sovereign despite the mintage difference.

We will never truly know which of any year, type or variety will have been lost or melted down.

Thank you for the information, much appreciated best wishes to you

[Roy]

8 minutes ago, slack said:

Quite right, good of you to take the time to point out my glaring mistake, best wishes to you 

Sincerely yours.

[GoldDiggerDave]

You could look at population reports for NGC and PCGS coins, this only shows the number of coins that have been graded some years are extremely low.  There's no way of knowing knowing as like a few have already said many have been melted down. Like  @sovereignsteve said many would have been melted down due to being under weight.    Even today sovereigns are still scrapped that under weight and worn.  

[RDHC]

To get a very, very rough idea of scarcity, you could look at the sample of 1849 (and other) sovereigns sold at the auctions of London Coin, Coins of the Realm and Coin Cabinet  over the past few years. Their websites give prices, grades, and good photos. Of course, there are other auctions, but these are the ones that I am familiar with. (In assessing the prices, allowance has to be made for the charge levied on purchasers by London Coins and more recently by Coin Cabinet. Also of course the fluctuating underlying price of gold will make the older prices look like bargains now.)

For much interesting information about Victorian and later sovereigns, try allgoldcoins.co.uk and the various sub-sections there.

Edited February 12, 2023 by RDHC

[pricha]

2 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

You could look at population reports for NGC and PCGS coins, this only shows the number of coins that have been graded some years are extremely low.  There's no way of knowing knowing as like a few have already said many have been melted down. Like  @sovereignsteve said many would have been melted down due to being under weight.    Even today sovereigns are still scrapped that under weight and worn.  

That's great info but who scraps sovereigns nowadays?  Maybe the odd dealer ?

[modofantasma]

16 minutes ago, pricha said:

That's great info but who scraps sovereigns nowadays?  Maybe the odd dealer ?

I know a webuygold type guy who scraps anything 😥😥 

[SidS]

I love grubby, toned sovereigns!

I've had a few 1840s dates that were very dark toned.

[GoldDiggerDave]

1 hour ago, pricha said:

That's great info but who scraps sovereigns nowadays?  Maybe the odd dealer ?

Sovereign dealers regularly scrap sovereigns for being heavily worn and mainly being under weight as they can not sell them back to customers.  

[slack]

5 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

You could look at population reports for NGC and PCGS coins, this only shows the number of coins that have been graded some years are extremely low.  There's no way of knowing knowing as like a few have already said many have been melted down. Like  @sovereignsteve said many would have been melted down due to being under weight.    Even today sovereigns are still scrapped that under weight and worn.  

Thank you very much for the information, good of you to take the time to help. Much appreciated 

[slack]

4 hours ago, RDHC said:

To get a very, very rough idea of scarcity, you could look at the sample of 1849 (and other) sovereigns sold at the auctions of London Coin, Coins of the Realm and Coin Cabinet  over the past few years. Their websites give prices, grades, and good photos. Of course, there are other auctions, but these are the ones that I am familiar with. (In assessing the prices, allowance has to be made for the charge levied on purchasers by London Coins and more recently by Coin Cabinet. Also of course the fluctuating underlying price of gold will make the older prices look like bargains now.)

For much interesting information about Victorian and later sovereigns, try allgoldcoins.co.uk and the various sub-sections there.

Thankyou very much for taking the time to help it's much appreciated 

[dicker]

It is possible to build a model that would take all of the data available and plot what survival rates might look like.

This would need some actuarial input to build the model and use “triangles” and probably some hard core compute power.

I don’t have time to work on this at the moment but is something I am interested in doing.

Are there any quants / actuaries here?

Best

Dicker

[Petra]

25 minutes ago, dicker said:

It is possible to build a model that would take all of the data available and plot what survival rates might look like.

This would need some actuarial input to build the model and use “triangles” and probably some hard core compute power.

I don’t have time to work on this at the moment but is something I am interested in doing.

Are there any quants / actuaries here?

Best

Dicker

You would have to have a vague idea of initial numbers and survivor numbers? Considering what has happened to sovereigns of all type’s particularly up to the 1920s, there is no way you will ever find out. When sovereign ps were scooped up to pay off national debt nobody took notice of years etc. a gold coin was a gold coin… get it melted!

[dicker]

I am afraid not. 

[Petra]

1 minute ago, dicker said:

I am afraid not. 

🧐🙁🧐

[Booky586]

You need data, the more the better. I guess the royal mint archives would hold useful information but I wouldn't know how accessable it is.

I've read somewhere that underweight sovereigns were taken out of circulation at irregular intervals with several years between these events rather than extraction happening as an ongoing process.