How rare is your coin?
How can one 1771 skilling coin sell for USD 10,000 while a similar coin from the same period sells for only USD 20?
Although the total mintage of these coins was huge, there are significant differences in the rarity of the various die combinations. We have used a combination of statistical methods, information from various sources and educated estimates to determine how many examples of each die combination we believe still exist.
The basis for our analysis is an estimate that approximately 50,000 coins from the 1771 skilling mintage still exist in collections around the world. This figure is probably on the high side, as we believe the actual number is more likely to be somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000. Having examined more than 7,000 coins ourselves and collected information on rare coins from other sources, we believe our dataset is sufficiently large to make reasonable statistical estimates of the occurrence of the various die combinations.
In the table below, we have divided the various die combinations into six rarity groups, ranging from Very Rare (only 1–10 known examples) to Abundant (more than 200 known examples).
As of February 2021, we had registered 981 die combinations, of which 155 were categorized as “Very Rare”. We estimate that these 155 die combinations account for approximately 850 coins in total, corresponding to about 1.7% of the surviving 1771 skilling coins.
Please take a look at the overview below to see our assessment of the rarity of your coin:
