"mazorj" wrote in message
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"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
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mazorj wrote:
"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
mazorj wrote:
"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
mazorj wrote:

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Damn! I would rate that as the motoring equivalent to finding a
1955-S doubled die cent in change.

1955-*S*???????

James the Gobsmacked

My bad. Originally I wrote it as a 1909-S VDB, then typed over and
deleted some characters to make it a more credible find - but
forgot
to lose the S.

Nothing get past your eagle eyes, damn them. :-I

I would hypothesize that the chances of finding a 1909-S VDB in
pocket change are massively larger than finding a 55 Doubled Die,
because they had 24X the mintage, and there are still a lot more
surviving SVDBs, even if half the original mintage has somehow
perished.

James the Actuary

Mmm... That goes to minted population, not circulating population. I
daresay that except for the rare finds from raided/stolen caches, any
circulating 1909 cent was snapped up into long-term storage by the
time we got our high school diplomas. Although most 1955 DD cents
probably have been grabbed off by knowledgeable collectors or are
languishing in the maws of bulk copper penny hoarders, I would think
that an errant 1955 DD has a much longer life expectancy out there in
circulation than a 100-year-old specimen. An obviously old, brown
1909 is going to attract a lot of eyeballs and will quickly be pulled,
even by non-collectors. A middling circulated 1955 strike, single or
double, is not going to do that. I still see 1950s cents mixed into
rolls and change, which is why I changed my post from the VDB to the
DD. The last time I got a 1909 cent of any variety in circulation was
way back when Sister Consommé was drilling the Holy Trinity into my
noggin while visions of filled Whitman folders danced in my head.

While it may be true that a 55DD has a much longer life expectancy in
circulation than an SVDB, the fact remains that the only way one is going
to find either is for, as you say, raided/stolen caches to enter
circulation, and there have to be collectively at least ten SVDBs in
those caches for every 55DD. The trick, of course, is to be that *first*
pair of eyeballs in either case! I never had that good fortune, even
back in nineteen mumbly nine when I was doing Luther's Small Catechism,
while secretly lusting after the female members of the class. Oh, and I,
too, lusted after filled Whitman folders.

James the Doubly Deprived

Okay, now I see the point where we parted ways in our thinking.

I submit that a small but finite number of 1955 DDs have been continuously
"in circulation" since 1955. By "in circulation" I mean that they haven't
been permanently removed for keeping by a collector. Some will have been
continuously in motion for routine purchases, some may have languished in
vaults for awhile, some may have been closeted for 10 or 20 years in some
non-numismatist's penny jar before they were reintroduced into the wild at
face value; but my point is that they have evaded capture for permanent
possession by a collector. Their numbers are extremely small - perhaps
only a few dozen - but unless you want to assume that every penny now in
circulation has been inspected by a collector and every 1955 DD has been
culled by them, a few of them must still be out there in the wild. Except
for the aforementioned minuscule number of raided specimens, you can't say
that about a 1909-S VDB. Even the clerk who can't recognize a dollar coin
when one is presented to him will intuitively know that "there must be
something valuable about that really old brown penny" and likely will
snatch it up even as he ignores the MS-58 1955 DD in the same till.

Practically speaking, the difference in our conclusions is more conceptual
than statistical. If the odds of finding a 1909-S VDB in your pocket
change are 1.000000 in a gazillion, the odds of finding a 1955 DD may be
something like 1.000001 in a gazillion. But... IMO those few undiscovered
circulating 1955 DDs are still out there waiting to be discovered in situ
by a vigilant collector.

- mazorj the Hair-Splitter


....on my way to Situ............... Hmmm. I guess my stupid GPS needs
updating........