Eagle Reverse quarters in circulation. Are they getting scarce?
CaptHenway
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Somebody just sent me a pictures of a Washington quarter reverse with a question, and as I wanted to double check a design detail before responding I grabbed my pocket change. I've been saving up to wash my car, so I had a dozen quarters on me.
Five Statehood, four ATB, two eagle reverse and one Bicentennial. Guess I just hadn't noticed that the eagle reverses were getting scarce. Are they?
Out of your pocket change, what are the numbers of the
A: Statehood
B: ATB
C: Eagle reverses
Bicentennial
TD
Five Statehood, four ATB, two eagle reverse and one Bicentennial. Guess I just hadn't noticed that the eagle reverses were getting scarce. Are they?
Out of your pocket change, what are the numbers of the
A: Statehood
B: ATB
C: Eagle reverses
BicentennialTD
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
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Comments
72 statehood
4 atb
23 regular eagle
1 Bicentennial
I would expect to see more Bicentennials than one in a group of 100 quarters.I will sell my Bicentennial quarter to the first person with a $5 bill.Regular eagles are getting scarce too it appears.Only $1 each is what I would sell these for.
I don't know what I was thinking putting that Bicentennial with the other 99....
As a side note,my wife was going through our dime jar a few weeks ago and found two silvers...that's right,two of them...It appears that paying closer attention to pocket change is in order in our household....
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Here's my pocket change
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
A: Statehood
+B: ATB
56%
C: Eagle reverses
43.5%
.5%+
It will vary a little around the country, especially the relative numbers of states
and ATB, but this should be pretty close for most areas.
Try finding a nice choice AU-58 eagle reverse. Theseare getting decidely tough.
How'd I do?
Have pretty much gone cashless - even the homeless here take VISA.
<< <i>1806 B2, 1806 B7, 1818 B6, 1818 B8, 1820 B3.
How'd I do? >>
2 for 5.
And an idea for the next contest/giveaway
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
She had $90 in quarters over the last year or so.
A: Statehood - 219
B: ATB - 62
C: Eagle reverses - 69
E: Canadian - 3 (argh)
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
<< <i>E: Canadian - 3 (argh) >>
Congratulations, 20 cent pieces are very valuable!
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
<< <i>
<< <i>E: Canadian - 3 (argh) >>
Congratulations, 20 cent pieces are very valuable!
LOL, luckily, living near the border with Canada, most of my local banks (or businesses) take them at face value if you just use say one per transaction.
Worst case, I can use them on the toll roads, as the Thruway takes them at 90% face, so they're 22.5 cent pieces 8-)
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
Eagle; 87
Bicentennial; 2
SQ; 65
ATB; 8
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
If I get a clad eagle reverse quarter in change, it winds up going to Coin Star and all other quarters go in the ceramic monkey bank.
Four were eagle reverse.
Two were Statehoods.
Four were ATBs.
<< <i>Have pretty much gone cashless - even the homeless here take VISA.
Seattle has always been fairly progressive!
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
<< <i>The consensus, between the two threads, seems to be that the Eagle quarters are still quite common. >>
They are, and they will stay very common for many years.
But, almost all the eagle reverse quarters are back in circulation now and they are almost all
getting worn down and lost. None are improving in grade or staying the same. This is significant
because for the first time there is sufficient collector demand to affect the grade distribution of
the quarters. Before each date formed a nice bell curve in its grade distribution but now the high
end coins are being plucked out by collectors who prefer nice attractive and lightly worn specimens
to beat up and worn out coins that were badly made to start with. The absolute number of dates
like the '69-P that are attractive and above F condition is so low that they will be all picked out in
a relative;ly brief period.
It's the disappearance of the eagle reverse coins that will accelerate this process. People will per-
ceive that the eagles are disappearing and want to save some for the future. The lower numbers
will simply attract their attention. Right now they aren't so uncommon that many will notice or get
a handful of only later dates through randomness but as the numbers of later coins increase and the
older coins are lost or collected this will become increasingly common.
This can't happen quickly probably and there are still some 18 or 20 billion eagle reverse coins in
circulation. Of course most of these are common dates in typical condition. More than 35% are
culls and another 30% are highly worn or ugly. You're lucky to get one or two collectible quarters
dated before 1980 per roll now days. Of course these will tend to be only F or F+ with a VF once
in a while. This will simply drop rapidly from now on and this drop will feed the increase in new is-
sues which might in turn feed the loss of older coins.
I'm expecting at least a billion decrease in the population in the next couple years even if the mint
doesn't start to remove the large numbers of mutilated and worn coins. If they do it would mean
a three billion decrease and new quarters to replace them.
I'd say there has been a noticeable change in only three years for this metric. It's not at all unusual to find no nice collectible pre-'80 quarters in a roll already. It averages only about one per roll now. "Collectible" here is being defined as an attractive coin of at least VG condition. "Attractive" meaning no corrosion, damage, or gouges and the coin doesn't have obvious production issues. In 1981 about 85% of quarters in circulation were sufficiently nice but virtually every one of these has been subjected to another 37 years of wear and tear as well as loss. It as dropped from 85% to less than 3%.
The government is apparently removing heavily worn quarters so there are very few below VG anyway.
Incidence of new quarters has increased from 56% to 61% since this thread was begun.
Baley sure has an interesting pocket!
Circulated coins seem to be getting uglier these days. Many are banged up and scratched but they also are getting dirtier. Every time I look at change a number of them look like they were in a mud bath for a while.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
Let me look at my quarter jar.
Of the first 500, they were all bicentennial quarters.
Oh wait. Wrong quarter jar...
I long for the day when the state quarters and ATB quarters become scarce.
I wonder if someone is hoarding the coins or if the pieces are simply wearing out after decades of use. I'm assuming the latter. Isn't the life span around 25 years for coins?
I notice anytime I get a 1960s dated quarter in change now - they are indeed getting scarce.
Only seems that way because new quarters are obviously going to be given out in change as well. Of course that will change the percentage you see. I don't know of anyone who is pulling them out of circulation and they will last a very long time as a usable coin.
Many are currently waiting in change jars for the day it has became full enough to take to the bank.
If your looking for an old date in your change try the nickel. Without undergoing a major change the general population cares about, they tend to go on forever. I have even found multiple silver ones in circulation.
Current pocket change quarters (11):
Eagle reverse (5)
Statehood (4)
National Parks (2)
The earliest coin is a 1972-D.
Just checked... Seven quarters....
3 Eagle reverse
3 SHQ
1 National Park
Cheers, RickO
Coins that have been in storage are often 'dirty". I'd guess that circulation keeps them clean and they go into storage dirtier than others.
Most of these coins were born ugly. They were poorly struck by worn dies but as they wear down many lose evidence of their poor beginnings and become quite beautiful. But simultaneously two other factors are making most coins ugly; the big one is damage and the smaller one is the type of wear coins get now days. Much of the wear comes as tiny little marks from counting machines and being drawn to deeply down from a hopper. Rather than getting smooth they often get rougher and rougher.
A few years ago about 10% of the early dates were just worn out and 30% were culls. But 50% were just gone, lost to the ravages of time. Of those 60% of the survivors that were still "collectible" about half were attractive. Now days the survivors are looking a lot rougher.
There are still nearly a couple billion nice attractive older clads out there but if you want something like a nice attractive VF 1969 they are becoming few and far between.
The percentage of quarters sitting in change jars fluctuates with the strength of the economy. Due to the loss of purchasing power this correlation isn't as close as it once was.
There is another factor not being addressed. Other than normal losses due railroad tracks, vises in garages, and "Hey, look what happens when you drop a quarter in acid", if just looking at the RATIO of eagle reverses, is that collections, rolls, etc. of state quarters are being broken up and send back to the wild. Last week, I found an album my mom had put together, from change, mostly complete, for 2004 to 2009 (stopped in 2008). Nothing special, but no value over face, so they went back to circulation.
IMHO, more state reverses are being put back to work, than eagles being put back to work, so the RATIO imbalance will accelerate.
No difference than a 1958-D and a 1961-D cent. One gets nabbed and one soldier's on.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence these are being hoarded but it also appears the FED is removing heavily worn coin. Perhaps more importantly it appears those millions of folders for clad quarters are finally being filled up. This is easily seen because any drawdown in the scarce dates shows up rather plainly. If collectors take one of each date then the scarce dates have a larger percentage drop than the common dates and this is occurring. I'm simply seeing about 10% fewer of the scarce dates than I was. This implies about 4 million collections (of course collectors often will have more examples of better dates).
In ten years I'd predict only about 8% of circulating quarters will be eagle reverse and they'll mostly be '90's, low grades, common dates, and culls.
I probably see one out of four eagle reverse quarters on a regular basis.
My YouTube Channel
Out of three... one statehood and two eagles.
From the guest laundry room at a 4 star hotel, I walked past it and saw the change machine which gives out quarters so I put in 28.00. I thought it's very seldom people staying at 4 star hotels would do their laundry there. I got quite a bit of the statehood quarters and the eagles, not much of the ATBs.