Coin Week 1983-D Quarter Article.
cladking
Posts: 28,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
https://coinweek.com/ghost-coins-1983-d-washington-quarter-varieties/
It's great to see people are still working on this to figure out what's going on.
I certainly find it believable that it's related to proof coin production and this was my first theory on them. Many of them have very PL reverses but it's probably not so simple as just having repurposed proof coin dies. I suppose it could be as simple as mix ups in the processing of proof and regular coin dies.
Tempus fugit.
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Comments
Yikes, that's an embarrassing article.
Good article. I wish they would have shown the entire reverse side by side though.
There's only one reverse to show - the author is simply confusing early and late die state examples for different design types.
‘’There's only one reverse to show - the author is simply confusing early and late die state examples for different design types.’
You know what they say - any Clad coinage publicity is good publicity! 🤣
Wondercoin.
It doesn’t matter to me. I ain’t gonna compare mine until some more authority makes them rarities. There are some buggered-die 1983 quarters out there, though; the worst year. I’ll see ads use that data and I’ll watch the value rise on eBay when that article filters through the sellers who have occasion to learn it.
The type 2 isn't rare but it didn't appear in most of the major sources so it's tough in Unc.
I'm hardly an expert but i still suspect it's related to how many times they were squeezed. The type 1 was hubbed two or three times and the type 2 only once. I'd like to see the experts take a hard look at them. It is curious that the type 1 is very rare in PL but the type 2 is not.
This topic usually gets me in trouble but in for a penny, in for a pound and as has been said there is no bad publicity for clads.
Neat article. Thanks for posting the link.
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In my opinion there is only one hub used, and the visible artifacts are due to die erosion wear.
I would be proven wrong if an early die state with doubling were to be documented, but I doubt that will happen.
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Based on my reading of all three articles, there are clear differences between the proof and business strike hubs that are not explained by die erosion. In Part 2, the author states:
"There is a wide separation between the “E” and “S” of “States” on Proof Reverses but the letters are nearly touching on business strikes . . . . The leaves are well-defined and the leaf opposing the “A” in “Dollar” nearly touches it, while a separation is present on regular reverses. Also, the leaf before the arrow bundle upon which the Eagle is perched curves slightly to the left. It then rises above and obscures the arrowhead points on the Proof die version. On business issues, the leaf terminates noticeably lower and leaves a gap between itself and the exposed, uppermost arrow point."
What's more, a similar scenario unfolded with some 1958 and 1959 Franklin halves that were struck in the same facility (Philadelphia) during the same time period. All proof Franklins from 1957 to 1963 (and some from 1956) display an eagle on the reverse that is much bolder than the eagle on most circulation strikes, and with a different number and arrangement of feathers. However, some 1958 and 1959 business strikes (Philadelphia only) display the same bold eagle as the later proofs.
This is strong evidence that reverse dies originally intended for Franklin proofs were used to mint some business strikes. If this is true for Franklin halves, then it is overwhelmingly likely that it's true for Washington quarters also.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
There were real differences between proof and business strike hubs in 1956-1964, which is what those three linked articles (and your quoted passage above) refer to. Most everyone that collects Washington quarters knows about the 1956-1964 Type B reverse quarters, which are real varieties.
There were no such differences on 1983 quarter hubs.