Should people be saving 1982 and 1983 quarters?

coppercoins

Even if they are worn to EF and have obvious circulation wear? I was just thinking, the prices for BU rolls are so high, the circ rolls have to be above average in value, right?

So which dates and mints are the keepers in change now? ahemmm....Cladking?

nankraut

Spend those junkers!

cladking

The wholesale price on AU's right now is about $3. XF's are getting decidedly tough to
find in circulation especially if they're nice well struck examples. I save only the AU's
with type "c" reverse and XF's with type "d" reverse. In either case they must be well
struck.

This amounts to about 1% of the '83-P's in circulation.

coppercoins

Enlighten me please on the reverse types...I didn't know 1983 quarters had any reverse types.

And is this quarter saving just for the P mint coins, or should I save D mint as well? What about 1982 or 1984?

cladking

The type "d" has a much lower relief than the type "c". There are also differences in the
relative positions of the letters and the shape of the Q. The easiest wat to spot it is the
distance between the right side of the "N" in "UNUM" and the eagle's head is much greater
on the type "d".

This reverse is also known as the small motto and was used starting in 1977. It appears
on all the quarters through 1984 and gets increasing common toward the end of the run.
The '83-P is most exceptional because it is only a little harder to find than the type "C".
The early ones are excrutiatingly difficult to find in any grade and some may not exist in unc.
The '84-P is a little tough in unc but extremely common in change.

There is no '82-P small motto.

JRocco

Learn something new everyday. Thanks.

Blade

How much are these worth? I pulled some out of circulation when I was collecting as a kid. Few marks, probably MS65 or 66.

Cam40

i would think yes, these are worth saving but only in grades higher than XF. anything below that is
and will be, face value.
Great margins for value will be exponential between grades most likely as in alot of issues.

like $1 in 58 - $20 in 62 - $100 in 65 - $300 in 66 - $750 in 67 - etc......(wild example of fictional piece)

oreville

I must have saved untold quantities of 1983-P quarters. Even in AU condition, they looked awful.

coppercoins

Hey...if I can save a quarter now for 25c and sell it in a few years for a buck, I'm IN!

coinbuf

It's the cool new stuff like this that keeps me reading

Chris

joecool

Pocket change...

cladking

<< <i>Pocket change... >>



Other than the MS-65,66 mentioned earlier, these are all coins that can be found in pocket change.

While few circulated clad quarters are worth more than a nominal premium that does not mean that
they are all common. The small premiums are caused much more by the perception among most col-
lectors that they are merely "pocket change".

Not only is the "pocket change" changing, but times change as well.

cladking

In answer to the original question, I think any well struck attractive looking eagle reverse
quarter is worth saving it it has light wear. This means '86 to date has to be in an attractive
AU, and '65 to '85 has to be nice XF except the '68 to '73 in VF.

Most of the clads in circulation were very poorly made and are very unattractive. While usage
can improve a coin's look over time, this generally doesn't happen with clads because so much
of their wear comes from collisions rather than sliding or rubbing against other coins. They tend
to pick up a lot of damage as they age and will sometimes even continue to circulate after they've
been severely damaged. There are some dates which are especially tough to find in choice con-
dition because they were made with lower rims or slightly softer metal. Some of the early dates
circulated oddly because of fed practices and are effectively older or newer than the date on them.
This has had some strange effects such as to make nice '71-D quarters relatively abundant while
the Philly '71 is virtually unavailable above F.

In answer to the value of the gem '83-P: I don't really know. It is almost certainly grossly under-
priced. MS-60's wholesale at over $22 now and gem coins are quite scarce. Most clad gems come
from mint sets so in addition to the date being scarce in lower grades it is especially tough in high-
er grades. I advertised to pay $40 each for gem '82 and '83 quarters all through the '90's. It was
merely an attempt to get those with rolls to look through them and send me choice coins. Incredibly
there were more VF's sent than gems!!! There were dozens of AU's and most were unattractive.
Only a few gems were found and the owners said they checked multiple rolls for them.

There are souvenir mint sets made for each of the four '82/'83 quarters. These have mintages of
only between 10,000 and 20,000. Large numbers have been cut up to make date/denomination
sets but these coins are not the same quality as regular mint sets. The mint obviously took some
pains to use coins from newer dies which were more attractive but these were not made with
new dies under increased pressure. Gems in these sets range from scarce to not seen. I looked
through a few hundred 1980-D sets at the Denver mint and found nothing better than MS-65 ex-
cept for a few dimes. The '83 is slightly better but the '82 tends to be even worse. Numismatic
News had their own sets as a premium for new subscribers and some of the finest coins come from
these. There is also a privately assembled set from Paul & Judy's coins in Arcola, Illinois with a
stripe in the upper left corner which contains some gems (also some type "d"'s). The number of these
coins slabbed in high grade is surprising to me, but it would seem unlikely there will be too many
more in the future.

291fifth

NO. Common junk and always will be. Spend them.

cladking

<< <i>NO. Common junk and always will be. Spend them. >>



You're half right. These coins are all just junk. They barely even qualify as coins since they
contain no silver or gold. Collectors don't like them and that is the only thing that's really im-
portant. God knows that collectors' tastes and whims are constant across the eons and that
which is highly desirable at one time will always be sought after forever. Anyone who would
actually pay more than face value for junk simply doesn't understand that collectors desire on-
ly quality and scarcity. Even if this junk were high grade and scarce it would obviously fail the
test of not being junk, and being high quality, and being rare. For practical purposes they can't
really be considered American coins since all the real Americans died off generations ago and
the country has now gone a different direction where real collectors don't like junk. If the coins
weren't junk then people would have set the coins aside for future collectors and there wouldn't
be any that were hard to find. If they weren't junk then the fed would have warehouses full of
old shiny ones to release in a series of sales when people started collecting them. If they weren't
junk then the mint wouldn't sell them at face value. If they were worthy of being collected then
they would be centuries old and they wouldn't all be made by new fangled machines. If they were
of any real value then they'd have decades of price histories to refer to and they could be pur-
chased at any coin shop. If they weren't junk there would be numerous books which could be
consulted to find all the varieties and known errors, there would be auction prices and experts
and many people engaged in doctoring and cracking them. Real coins were all removed from
circulation in the 1960's and replaced with this junk. A 1964 dime may not be very valuable but
it's a real coin and will always be more desirable than any junk made since.

Yes, it's obvious that all these coins are junk and it's obvious there are a few people now who are
junk collectors, but this junk is a real hoot to collect. It's a lot of fun to find rare and desirable coins
in pocket junk that few people even know about. It's a never ending education to collect junk that
can't just be looked up in a book or bought at the corner coin shop (or any other shop in some cases).
While if a junk collector evr finisjhes his collection then he'll have nothing but a complete collection
of... well... junk, he'll have the satisfaction of having junk that few others have and he'll have some
junk that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere. While junk obviously isn't for everybody there are
some people who are real collectors in the sense that they don't care what kind of junk they collect
and don't give a hoot about what some people think about it.

No. Otherwise you simply couldn't be more wrong. Just because everytime you look in your change
you see a clad quarter it does not mean that they are all common. Just because you percieve them to
be all common and spend them indiscriminately does not mean they have no interest to those of us
who collect this junk. Just because there is a sucker born every minute does not mean they all col-
lect junk.

Low prices for this junk is symptomatic of the fact that most people realize it's junk. There are a few
who are waking up to the fact that some of this junk is actually difficult to find.

Baley

I cannot imagine being in the market for a 1982 or 1983 quarter, myself, even at the bargain price of 25 cents each. I am just not interested in coins minted since i was born, personally, and that's just my opinion. However, I can imagine that some other collectors might want to buy a lightly circulated clad quarter someday, and if some folks save them, I'll bet they can sell them for good money in the future.