OLD R & I Ratings Discontinued

[morganman]

I personally really miss the ratings even though some were outta whack, I feel they could
have been adjusted property and remained useful to collectors here
Now all we have is descriptions and no mention of rarity in general
Their must be some neat simple way to provide members here with a scale of common, thru
very rare, other than having to go into SSDC pop reports etc all the time.
Just like we desperately needed a value pricing guide, i feel we also need a guide of some sort
for Rarity and Collector interest

I used the old R/I extensively, adjusting for obvious over weight R'S - Something seems better
than nothing, to a point IMHO I feel were in dark ages again and looking into SSDC all the time
is a pain. Just one members opinion. We need help!!

[DHalladay]

In my opinion, doing away with Rarity and Interest ratings is not only the right thing to do, but it was long overdue.

In the once upon a time when they were originally assigned, they were merely a best wild guess, because how can anyone possibly make an accurate estimation of the rarity of anything that has never been seen before?

The bottomless pitfall of those estimates is they were never adjusted as time went by, as populations grew, and as knowledge was gained.

R ratings that were and are too high erode the credibility of the entire R system. At best, they simply mislead casual VAM collectors who didn't know any better. But at worst they are used as deceptive exclamation points in the over-hyping and overpricing of coins, targeted at people who don't know any better by unscrupulous sellers who DO know.

[iwillbenice]

About time!

[messydesk]

In short, the R numbers were inaccurate information being abused by sellers trying to get top dollar. Keeping them updated and accurate is a far more daunting task than it is for bust halves and big copper, where the number of varieties is over an order of magnitude smaller, there's no such thing as bags and rolls that haven't been searched, and the number of people studying populations over time has been more stable.

If the R numbers were to be adjusted, we'd have to adopt a new rarity scale that mapped to what is considered useful by big copper, CWT, early federal, and patterns, which is approximated with this formula:

raritytopop.jpg (13.56 KiB) Viewed 1847 times

Where P represents the maximum population for rarity r, and a is the estimated surviving population of some of the most common (R1) varieties.

Staying on top of that for 5000 varieties is something nobody would want to do, and you'd still have to be able to tell which R-numbers were freshly calculated and which were the original guesses. Awareness of what varieties are unusually hard to find is best, and this is best accomplished within a specific date and mint, and in some cases grade. Communicating this without using R-numbers can be much easier and more effective than trying to assign R-numbers for almost all dates and mints.

[UNCLE BINGO]

@morganman Why don't you created The MML or morganman list ? Maybe like a poll just for fun... VAMs could be nominated for the rarest by opinion of the member ship of this forum . Because I am new and thought of this I would like to nominate the 1889-P VAM 23Ato the MML top 10....Any seconds for consideration of this coin ,,,, I level 8.5 rarity 9.75.....

[morganman]

What Dennis and JB say in response are all true or good answers to a very complicated issue.
IMHO- 5,000 Vams= really outta hand !
Some type of concerted simple way of assigning rarity withot killing off the members who
help assign and maintain such info
If anything is developed it must be super simple to develop & maintain or else it will become
outdated and useless over time
Maybe food for thought by membership insights of usefullness and potential development
Before Top 100. Hot 50, WOW & etc development no one forsaw the oppertunities such lists
would open up. Some type of tracking seems warrented that doesnt get bogged down in mud

Maybe a simple formula like JB suggests that is constant and automatically formulated could
be easily installed andmaintained ??
I agree that the old R & i were mis leading etc, and bad for business overall
Maybe this post will get members thinking of how to better this issue

[Eschaton]

At the end of the day the market decides. If people want to pay a premium for it, it will happen. If people don’t, it won’t. Obviously I think most list coins and significant historical pieces like discovery coins will command premiums, whereas most scribble scratches, and other minutiae won’t. Perhaps at the end of the day, a system with simple designations like NP (no premium), P (premium), SP (significant premium), will prove most useful.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[morganman]

eschaton; What a simple great piece of advice- simple but affective and wont take loads
of time to develop & implement

If powers at be could read your answer, maybe this could be a start of something neat
Glad your back on VW as we need new thoughts and inflection. KUDOS

[impairedsquirrel]

It's unfortunate that the I&R ratings became so relied upon (even if it should have been completely expected...), because I can't not chuckle every time I see an eBay listing with "OMG, R4!!!!". It should be simple to place a desirability rating on VAMs, but there are far too many variables involved. For instance, and staying in my lane, take the 1882-O VAM-17B. To any casual VAMmer, it is totally "meh", but if you were working on a WOW! set and you needed one, you may be twice as interested in finding one than if you weren't... of course that would still put it at about 5/100 on a desirability scale... on the flip side, even if you aren't particularly interested in VAMs, but know enough to know what you're looking at, you'll be cleaning your colon and trying your best to not let the seller see you sweating if you stumble onto a Scarface, so it would rate as a 80/100 for a casual coin collector, but a 125/100 to a VAMmer.
All that being said, it would be nice to have some type of guidance, because I sure did spend my fair share on "VAM-XX" holders just because they were attributed as VAM-XX back when I didn't know any better.

[MarkyB]

It's also OK if it just disappears. If it has a nickname like scarface or extra hair, there's interest. I can use population reports for rarity. IMO there are more worthy tasks needing attention, such as format or broken links, to make a good site even better.

[messydesk]

... Perhaps at the end of the day, a system with simple designations like NP (no premium), P (premium), SP (significant premium), will prove most useful.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is exactly how the price guide is set up. Coins with a nominal premium (P) can be set to either a percentage or fixed value above the variety-agnostic (NP) value. Coins with a significant premium (SP) can be set to a specific value that is independent of the base value. To maintain this, it is important that discrepancies be brought to the attention of Ash and John C. If there is someone else who would like to work with them on an ongoing basis, please let them know. A credible and stable price guide is critical to broad market acceptance of VAM premiums.

[Eschaton]

A price guide that’s available to those who are not members of the SSDC is essential to the future of VAMs unless the price guide is to be a little more than a carrot on a stick to convince people to join the SSDC. But if that’s the case then VAMs will suffer at the expense of the SSDC. Seems counterintuitive unless the focus is not the hobby but rather the organization. What are we looking more to promote? The hobby of VAMs? Or the SSDC? If we will never allow VAMs to be bigger than the SSDC, then the hobby will continue to elude the mainstream. And I know I’m ruffling feathers, but that’s a discussion that needs to be had by more than just the gate keepers IMHO.

[UNCLE BINGO]

I will try and give you my humble opinion being somewhat new to this hobby , The highly visual Vams are attractive to collectors , dealers , even the general public . Scarface , hang nails , Clashed E's, Berts etc... and then you hit a problem like spitting eagle . In reading the resources here it states the non spitting eagles are rarer than ye ole loogie die chip or whatever it is . I like the simpler idea about something closer to a desirability
scale ...MAYBE HV for highly visual VAM's for the so easy to see coins , your kid could attribute .... Maybe CE for collector edition series VAMS . and TS, top shelf for the truly Rare high dollar stuff that is reflected in the price guide . Suggestion here only ,,,,build an app for the price guide, charge a few bucks on google play . The biggest problem i had when just moving silver around was trying to look at pcgs and ngc for some idea of value and then getting beat to death with Grey sheets .

[messydesk]

A price guide that’s available to those who are not members of the SSDC is essential to the future of VAMs unless the price guide is to be a little more than a carrot on a stick to convince people to join the SSDC. But if that’s the case then VAMs will suffer at the expense of the SSDC. Seems counterintuitive unless the focus is not the hobby but rather the organization. What are we looking more to promote? The hobby of VAMs? Or the SSDC? If we will never allow VAMs to be bigger than the SSDC, then the hobby will continue to elude the mainstream. And I know I’m ruffling feathers, but that’s a discussion that needs to be had by more than just the gate keepers IMHO.

This price guide is what the Greysheet price guide will be based on.

[Eschaton]

Hi JB, I’m not sure I’m tracking, will the greysheet be doing something w vams soon? Been away for years, not up with recent developments

[messydesk]

Hi JB, I’m not sure I’m tracking, will the greysheet be doing something w vams soon? Been away for years, not up with recent developments

Yes. They'll have a quarterly price guide for VAMs that tracks the SSDC price guide. This is one of the reasons that if there's something amiss with the pricing in the guide, it needs to be brought up with the appropriate people, and also a reason for the call for people that can help with the guide.

[Eschaton]

That’s cool, I know PCGS has been putting some vam prices in their price guide for a few yrs now. How does one go about getting a price guide? I think the last vamview price guide I have is the last year they were in print. Probably almost a decade ago now… feeling old lol. Is poor Dennis still amassing price data?

[DHalladay]

Is poor Dennis still amassing price data?

Yes I am. 20,000 entries in the 2005-2008 database set; coming up on 54,000 in the 2009-now set.

[keilg1]

Is poor Dennis still amassing price data?

Yes I am. 20,000 entries in the 2005-2008 database set; coming up on 54,000 in the 2009-now set.

And you're still able to look at a coin and spot a very subtle change that helps ID it...? #jediknightyouare,hum?

[morganman]

Heres the problem!!!! A fellow member dedicates many yrs to amassing tons of
Vam sales and is not compensated in any way.
Then SSDC ie: Ash develops a value guide withot even asking
for help/input. Issues have arisen in yrs past lending to this kinda
crap. Not intended to start any war here but give us a break IMHO

Dennis has to many sales figures to be ignored, and if i was him i would
simply tell powers at be to go fish. IMHO Seems the plan all along was
to avoid using DH sales figures, for whatever reason.

I would probally start a subscription based pricing/va;ue list among
other things, but many here are to old and tired to start a new time
consuming venture. We are into enjoying the times we have left. LOL