It was 5 years ago this week...............
EagleEye
Posts: 7,677 ✭✭✭✭✭
It happened sometime in November, 2004. An employee had access to the crown jewels of the Denver Mint- the unhardened dies. He or she took two dies that had just been given their impression of a cow, cheese and corn for the Wisconsin State Quarter series and with a hammer blow, made a mark on one of the dies. Not content with the look, they took another die and made two marks on it.
These dies were then hardened with the rest of the dies and put into the press on or around Thanksgiving.
The Wisconsin Extra Leaf Quarters were born.
How the WI Extra Leaf Quarters were made (Video)
Rarity and early values of the WI Extra Leaf Quarters (Video)
These dies were then hardened with the rest of the dies and put into the press on or around Thanksgiving.
The Wisconsin Extra Leaf Quarters were born.
How the WI Extra Leaf Quarters were made (Video)
Rarity and early values of the WI Extra Leaf Quarters (Video)
Rick Snow, Eagle Eye Rare Coins, Inc.Check out my new web site:
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Comments
<< <i>and today these are worth? >>
A quick ebay search shows a PCGS MS64 Extra low leaf in MS64 for 240. High leaf examples are more and the higher grade coins are considerably more.
We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads.
More than the Grey Shet prices.
or at random? If there is an extra leaf it sounds like too much of a coincidence
and must have been premeditated.
Your video makes a compelling argument for a clandestine mint operators deed - but why? for what? did they know when the dies would be used?
Maybe it was all a conspiracy planned by the mint director and implemented by the engraver
to sell more rolls/bags of quarters and give a boost to the declining state quarter interest
after all their margin per quarter is very large (compared to the cent or nickel) and only beat by the half and dollar (which is not a high volume seller)
Maybe it was a mint employee who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin remembering milking the cows and growing corn, and did not care about monetary implications but was just proud of the state they grew up in - and made additions in easily seen locations on a coin with an uncluttered design
(how many extra trees have been found on MN?)
stuff like this happens and a few dealers make so much they can practically retire (if they didn't love doing it so much)
congrats on your score and hard work to get it recognized by the TPGs and entered into the redbook
as the potential for major die varieties is frequent, but realization is rare
ps nice video on you-tube
Dang time goes by fast
So somebody fashioned a punch in the rough shape of a leaf
and made an unauthorized variety of the quarter. I normally say
follow the money but it seems from the practices at the mint
it would be hard for someone to capitalize on their act.
Luckily I can prove I wasn't in Denver in November 2004.
Nice story.
roadrunner
It depends of what fact you re looking for. No, I didn't interview the culprit, but a culprit there was - proven by the facts drawn from examined on the coins themselves. Totally substantiated.
Motive? Yes, no motive makes sense. Perhaps Dave Bowers' "Give the mint a black eye" makes the most sense. A weak motive also does not reduce any of the points made in the video. There is firm proof for the conclusion.
Since there is no other credible explanation, the conclusion cannot be declared as false, possibly false, maybe false or even questionable.
An alteration to dies like this is indeed a very rare occurrence - I can only think of one other occasion where this happened - the 2004-D "Extra Ear" dime.
<< <i>Since there is no other credible explanation, the conclusion cannot be declared as false, possibly false, maybe false or even questionable. >>
With all due respect, Rick, just because there is only one "credible" theory to an observed phenomenon doesn't mean that theory is factual. It is still an unsubstantiated theory without facts.
Said another way, once we all believed the world was flat and time was a constant. Now we know better. The theory behind the extra leaf quarters is no different -- we have a generally accepted theory that may yet be proven correct or incorrect.
Respectfully...Mike
<< <i>An alteration to dies like this is indeed a very rare occurrence - I can only think of one other occasion where this happened - the 2004-D "Extra Ear" dime. >>
How about the Superbird quarter?
(Didn't I hear that before?)
That is a lint hub-through, doubtful it was on purpose.
In retrospect, values have made full circle. A variety or state quarter collector can buy a set at a reasonable price. Today's NGC 67 Trio set can be purchased at times for less than $2,000, not $7,500 back at the height of the market manipulation. 90% of the fast money guys have left this celebration many years ago. As one Forum member stated awhile back, Wisconsin Quarters are a thing of the past and no one cares about them anymore !! Well, here is to the two or three collectors and dealers that have stayed the winding course and still believe that a Mint die worker created a Special set of quarters five years ago. Note: just this year I talked to a knowledgeable coin person who investigates for numerous concerns. This person stated that the Denver Mint employee who was responsible for the Extra Leaf Quarters back five years ago was given early retirement !! The Mint knows plenty. This will end up years from now as a Paul Harvey Story... and now you know the Rest of the Story !!
<< <i>Many thanks to collector/ dealer Rick Snow and collector/metalurguist Chris Pilliod who have stayed with these WI Extra Leaf Quarters throughout many of the last five years. The non-believers have equally maintained their "professional doubts" about the origins of these Varieties for the same amount of time... bashing their significance and robbing their value. As collectors, you pretty much had to choose which camp you believe. Rick & Chris have done a marvelous job to present their facts as they see it in a logical and compelling manner. But the last five years has proven to me that several error coin experts will go to their graves spouting loudly that the WI quarters are nothing special and worthless. I am not a variety coin expert nor a metalurgist, but I have met both Rick Snow and Chris Pilliod personally and I beleive both individuals to be of the utmost integrity. Sure, Rick is a coin dealer by trade and was buying/selling the coins early on because he knew that they were special and because many were discovered in his hometown, Tucson, AZ. Chris, I beleive, was intrigued with the idea of their beginnings and proceedeed to research the idea. Rick never tried to take advantage of the frantic price manipulation going on in 2005-2006 on Ebay. That is to his credit. >>
<< <i> Note: just this year I talked to a knowledgeable coin person who investigates for numerous concerns. This person stated that the Denver Mint employee who was responsible for the Extra Leaf Quarters back five years ago was given early retirement !! The Mint knows plenty. This will end up years from now as a Paul Harvey Story... and now you know the Rest of the Story !! >>
That's really interesting.
"Live long and prosper"
My "How I Started" columns
why is it that you feel the need to denigrate those who don't see anything special about these coins?? better you should take the higher ground and be content with your place in the hobby while allowing them their place. think about it-----if we all agreed on things, most of us would be unnecessary. FWIW, i have never felt these were anything special and have met RS on several occasions, it being easy enough for me to seperate the two and enjoy the pleasure of his company and his place in Numismatics.
why not just accept that those "several error coin experts" just feel differently than you??
To be fair, Keets, he is denigrating those who actively rally against the variety, always without proof. I don't understand whay anyone would take an indefensible position against a variety whose cause is so obvious and now, indisputably proven.
Those who don't see anything special can just move on if they wish, not stop and throw stones. (Sorry, to bring you into this Stone)
There are other quarters. Like the mint worker that has done this kind of thing before.
The 1857 smoking seated Liberty quarter. The midnight minter he was called.
Potter Has done many papers on the 1857.
The low and high leaf quarters are the same type coin.
Why would someone do this you ask? Just for fun and to see if you can.
And there will be others who try this kind of thing to come.
25 inf 1/14 Gold Dragons ,never surrender, over come and adapt
and hold at all cost!
With the HL and LL quarters there is no such counter-argument, although many people have tried to invent one.
Numismatics is rife with things like this. the longer i participate in the hobby the more i seem to encounter greed, jealousy, vindictiveness and all sorts of human failings. i sometimes get pulled towards those traits myself. it is no wonder that many hobbyists choose to collect in obscurity, thus avoiding the many pitifalls which are a regular by-product of the more public way this forum tends to promote.
on the bright side of the ledger, it's a small price to pay for what we can get here, your discovery and subsequent research showing just that.