Q. David Bowers
The same scale used to evaluate the preceding can also be used to evaluate an issue of which hundreds of thousands of coins are known. Thus, we know that the General Services Administration disposed of 675,000 Mint State 1884-CC dollars in the 1970s, and, in addition, probably a hundred thousand or more Mint State 1884-CC dollars were released before then. Under the Universal Rarity Scale, the Mint State 1884-CC can be described as URS-21 (500,001 to 1,000,000 known). A 1989-S Proof set (of which 3,005,776 were sold) is URS-23.
With the Universal Rarity Scale, collectors of modern Proof sets, silver dollars, Hard Times tokens, large cents, and other series can all talk the same language.
I conceived the idea of the Universal Rarity Scale during the course of doing research for this book. In examining many price lists and auction catalogues in the silver dollar series I realized that the Sheldon scale was meaningless. Under the Sheldon Scale, a Mint State 1879-CC dollar, a "scarce" or "rare" coin to any specialist in the Morgan dollar field, would be listed as R-1, or "common," as, perhaps, 10,000 Mint State coins are known. Similarly, a Very Fine 1893-S Morgan dollar would be R-1 per Sheldon. In fact, not a single business strike Morgan dollar issue would be even R-4 on the Sheldon Scale! Listed as R-1 on the Sheldon scale would be the elusive 1879-CC as well as the very common 1881-S. Under the Universal Rarity Scale, the Mint State 1879-CC would be URS-15, while the common 1881-S would be URS-22. The seldom-seen Proof 1895 would be URS-11. In Mint State, the very rare 1893-S would be URS-6.
In the present text, I give an estimate of the actual number or number range I believe exist, and then follow it with the Universal Rarity Scale number. For example, for a given coin this notation may appear:
"Approximate population MS-63: 40 to 60 (URS- 7)"
If the lower number in an estimated population falls in one URS category and the higher number falls in a higher URS population, the lower number is used, as:
"Approximate population MS-63: 400 to 600 (URS-10)"
By means of the URS notation, anyone wanting to quickly compare rarities of various coins across different series can do so easily.
Should anyone else wish to use it, the Universal Rarity Scale is available without license or credit line. A satisfactory way to use it is as follows: "1885 trade dollar. URS-4."