What's the deal with 1983 quarters?
WACoinGuy
Posts: 1,110
I just noticed looking at a recent price guide that 1983 quarters are quite pricey -- Numismedia has them listed as worth a few bucks even in AU-50. Why are these so valuable? Are AU and higher specimins really that hard to find?
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Not many saved rolls of clad coins and the mint did not release mint sets that year, so nobody kept these, or have large reserves of high grade examples.
Perhaps the price is just too steep.
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<< <i>I had this discussion with a local dealer regarding the '83 coins and to a lesser extent the '82's (which were also not released in a standard mint set). He said it all comes down to dealers not giving modern coins much thought. However, he said, in hindsight it seems like a no-brainer that if the mint wasn't releasing sets, "roll speculation" would be a smart move. >>
There actually were more rolls of these set aside then most other dates of
the era. There simply weren't many of any of these coins saved and most
would be difficult to find in unc if not for mint sets. Numismatic News did a
series of articles on the difficulty of finding them as early as May, 1985 so there
were quite a few AU's pulled out in '85/'86. Even today an AU can be found in
circulation as a few of these find their way back. Most dealers dismiss all clad
coins and advise the people selling silver to just spend them.
The '82-P is likely scarcer in true unc but was very heavily saved in AU which
holds down the value somewhat.