Home U.S. Coin Forum

Quarter searching...

OnastoneOnastone Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭✭✭

Still looking through rolls for W's...not much luck lately. Every now and then I see a bicentennial quarter and it seems like Washington is in a higher relief than some of the current quarters. Is it just my imagination?

Comments

  • TurtleCatTurtleCat Posts: 4,589 ✭✭✭✭✭

    They definitely reduced the relief on circulating coins in the 90’s I believe. The birth of spaghetti hair Washington.

  • JimnightJimnight Posts: 10,767 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Good luck in your searching!

  • JBKJBK Posts: 14,643 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes, the bicentennials still have the higher relief of the old days.

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just looked at a couple of bi-centennials.... yes, a slightly higher relief... I saved them for a while...have a box of them...not sure why I still have them though :/ Might be time to spend them....Cheers, RickO

  • isaiah58isaiah58 Posts: 385 ✭✭✭

    Do you have a list of varieties to check for? If you do, what I did was pull by date first then go back and look at the coins better. I also recommend looking for machine doubling that stands out without having to use any magnification. People are collecting these so regardless of personal preferences. I chose to not sell a dime I found with exaggerated MD, because after researching this I decided it is not moral to take advantage of those collectors. After further consideration, i am now of the position that it is a moral decision. I am not in charge of telling anyone what they should or should not knowingly collect. I did get rid of the time at that time. If I were to find another similar coin, I would check eBay and most likely list it.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,312 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @isaiah58 said:
    Do you have a list of varieties to check for? If you do, what I did was pull by date first then go back and look at the coins better. I also recommend looking for machine doubling that stands out without having to use any magnification. People are collecting these so regardless of personal preferences. I chose to not sell a dime I found with exaggerated MD, because after researching this I decided it is not moral to take advantage of those collectors. After further consideration, i am now of the position that it is a moral decision. I am not in charge of telling anyone what they should or should not knowingly collect. I did get rid of the time at that time. If I were to find another similar coin, I would check eBay and most likely list it.

    There are a lot of interesting quarters in circulation and they each have a story to tell. Most of the stories are a little drab and about carelessness in production, distribution, and use but there are lots of coins that show various aspects of minting and unusual usage. There are varieties, minor "errors", and high grades that all defy the odds. Many of the coins have never even been looked at by a numismatist or even a beginning collector so you never know what you'll find next.

    If you put together a set of these (sorting by date is a great way to start) you can use it to identify oddballs.

    Circulating coinage is a great untapped resource.

    Tempus fugit.
  • johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 27,412 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I hope you hit soon. Droughts can be a bummer and frustrating

  • OnastoneOnastone Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @isaiah58 said:
    Do you have a list of varieties to check for?

    No I don't....but I should. I'm basically looking for the W mintmark. I've found 5 so far. Most of the mintmarks are P with a smattering of D's....the D's are always in better condition. Then there are the S mints, I've found about 8 of those which is kind of cool. But I haven't really looked for any varieties. Any suggestions? What should I keep an eye out for? Of course silver always stands out like a sore thumb. It was just recently that I noticed the higher reliefs of the bicentennials.

    @cladking said:

    Circulating coinage is a great untapped resource.

    I agree, it seems like a treasure hunt sometimes!

  • tommyrusty7tommyrusty7 Posts: 1,746 ✭✭✭✭

    I have boxes of solid Weir Farms D's and can not even look through them. My good eye was just operated on this week for a detached retina and my other eye has a real bad cataract on it. That was not a problem until my good eye went south this week . Now I see nothing at all out of my good eye and not much more out of the other one.

  • Mdcoincollector2003Mdcoincollector2003 Posts: 665 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Went through 230$ in quarters; nothing exiting except a gold plated quarter from Georgia.

  • isaiah58isaiah58 Posts: 385 ✭✭✭

    @Onastone said:

    Any suggestions? What should I keep an eye out for?

    There are several resources, I just googled them. I look over what I think would be varieties worth checking for. I found a few links here, I like:

    Wexler's http://www.doubleddie.com/
    Variety Vista http://varietyvista.com/index.htm

  • DBSTrader2DBSTrader2 Posts: 3,444 ✭✭✭✭

    tommyrusty7: I feel your pain! My left eye had a sudden detachment about 10 years ago that robbed me of all but minor peripheral vision out of it (and just enough to "wack-out" my right eye if left uncovered by a patch) & ultimately sidelined me from the working world. Slowly-developing cataract in the remaining good eye that the doc doesn't want to do anything with until it gets bad enough to warrant action (trade-off between having some sight & risk of anything going wrong)...... REALLY impacted my ability & appreciation for looking at coins/detail/etc, unfortunately. Hope you recover!

  • tommyrusty7tommyrusty7 Posts: 1,746 ✭✭✭✭

    Thank you my friend.

  • Joe_360Joe_360 Posts: 1,592 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @tommyrusty7 said:
    I have boxes of solid Weir Farms D's and can not even look through them. My good eye was just operated on this week for a detached retina and my other eye has a real bad cataract on it. That was not a problem until my good eye went south this week . Now I see nothing at all out of my good eye and not much more out of the other one.

    Sorry man, but you sure are lucky to find so many new rolls - California (Bay Area) does not have any....

  • OnastoneOnastone Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2, 2020 3:43AM

    @tommyrusty7 said:

    Now I see nothing at all out of my good eye and not much more out of the other one.

    @DBSTrader2 said:

    My left eye had a sudden detachment about 10 years ago that robbed me of all but minor peripheral vision out of it . Slowly-developing cataract in the remaining good eye

    I couldn't click on anything that made sense here except "quote". "Agree" "Like" or "LOL" definitely not appropriate . :( That has to seriously spoil collecting. I would go crazy losing my sight. Best luck to both of you.

    @jabba said:
    I’m looking for all the P & D 2019 and 2020 for my folder if you have any.

    Good to know. I'll keep an eye out.

  • OnastoneOnastone Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @isaiah58 said:

    @Onastone said:

    Any suggestions? What should I keep an eye out for?

    There are several resources, I just googled them. I look over what I think would be varieties worth checking for. I found a few links here, I like:

    Wexler's http://www.doubleddie.com/
    Variety Vista http://varietyvista.com/index.htm

    Wow, this really gets intense, lots of tiny detail to pay attention to. One thing I was reading about is "disoriented" dies, where some state quarters were made with shifting dies resulting in obverse and reverse designs not flipping perfectly, according to Red Book:
    "The most valuable are those that are shifted 180 degrees, so that both sides appear upright when the coin is turned over (called medal alignment).

  • isaiah58isaiah58 Posts: 385 ✭✭✭

    It all depends on how much time you invest. To check for alignment, you would need to put all the quarters les say heads facing up. Look over the obverse for anything that stands out, including major mechanical doubling as some people collect that. (not that I recommend collecting it, but some people do). Then flip them all over, any with the reverse not aligned will stand out. Plus you can peruse the reverse. I would put any coins to the side before this that you plan to check for specific recognized varieties. It is a crap shoot, but at the same time I find it is helping me refine my searching skills.

    Imagine doing this with small coins.

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Emoji
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file