has anyone ever seen one of the "square quarters" from the 80's?

jhusman · March 18, 2007 10:09PM

I just bought a new book on Washingtonia, and they list a "square quarter" that was sold in 1984. I can't find a photo on the internet orI would post one. It is a stylized quarter that has been rendered square, made of silver.

Has anyone seen one? have a line on a dealer that can find me one?

Justin

lathmach · March 18, 2007 10:10PM

I can square one up in a vise for you. What's it worth to you?

Ray

Outhaul · March 18, 2007 10:12PM

jhusman · March 18, 2007 10:31PM

Very good, but not right. Baker # Y11 Struck by Medallic art co. Sold by square deal productions.

There is a line drawing in the book I purchased, and it is very, very cool.

Sold in 1984.

Also, good luck on your boat launch, outhaul. Fair winds and following seas to thee, mate.

291fifth · March 18, 2007 10:42PM

The pieces you mention were actually struck in 1982, though they were dated 1984. They are .999 fine silver and come in 1/4 and 1/2 ounces weights. They were struck by the Medallic Art Co. The difference between the two is in the thickness of the planchets. One of the Krause catalogs, I don't recall the exact title but it has to do with unusual issues, lists and pictures them. While I don't follow them, the valuations in the Krause catalog seem very optimistic.

jhusman · March 18, 2007 11:47PM

Have you ever seen one in person?

291fifth · March 18, 2007 11:55PM

<< <i>Have you ever seen one in person? >>

I owned one back in the mid-80's to mid-90's period. I wish I still had it.

jhusman · March 18, 2007 11:55PM

So you think the prices are optimistically low?

291fifth · March 18, 2007 11:57PM

<< <i>So you think the prices are optimistically low? >>

I think the prices in the catalog are way, way too high.

jhusman · March 19, 2007 12:13AM

I have a 1999 edition of "Medallic Portraits of Washington"

Is there a newer version? In my book they list it at $25.

what did you sell yours for, if you don't mind me asking?

Burks · March 19, 2007 12:27AM

I like the square quarter look.

Maybe it's time for the US to make a square coin............

Bear · March 19, 2007 12:29AM

The squared quarter would have two obvious negatives.

It would tear a person's pockets and it would be diificult

to place in rolls.

291fifth · March 19, 2007 12:33AM

<< <i>I have a 1999 edition of "Medallic Portraits of Washington"

Is there a newer version? In my book they list it at $25.

what did you sell yours for, if you don't mind me asking? >>

About $25, which was about half of the original issue price. I still have the original sales literature piece around somewhere...now there is a really rare item!

jhusman · March 19, 2007 1:06AM

You wouln't need rolls, just a rubber band or two.

edix2001 · March 19, 2007 1:07AM

I thought you meant the Andor Orand "Squared Quarter" from 1984:

jhusman · March 19, 2007 5:12AM

That is exactly what I mean.

Any line on one of these?

edix2001 · March 19, 2007 7:05AM

Here's his website:
http://www.sqrdl.com/

Zoins · March 19, 2007 7:09AM

Hmm, should Daniel Carr make a square version of his CARRter dollar for Square Globe News?

dcarr · March 19, 2007 7:20AM

<< <i>Hmm, should Daniel Carr make a square version of his CARRter dollar for Square Globe News? >>

Hmm... Maybe so.

edix2001 · March 19, 2007 7:54AM

You could say that Andor Orand was the first with a satirical computer designed coin, and Daniel Carr being the most popular creator these days.
I just received a copy of Unusual World Coins 4th edition, and have the numbers on the Squared Quarter:

X # 301 CuNiZn Mint. 330
X # 301a 1/4 Oz. Au Mint. 1,310
X # 301b 1/2 Oz. Au Mint. 602
X # 301c Bz Mint. 15
X # 301d Ag Mint. 12
X # 301e Br Mint. --

jhusman · March 19, 2007 10:56AM

Thanks.

He is asking $200 for the smaller one - seems a bit steep.

edix2001 · March 19, 2007 12:00PM

A bit steep considering he still has some after 25 years!
But he is an artist, so it goes with the territory.
Ever hear of Yves Klein? He had a buyer purchase 20 grams of gold powder from him which he then blew off his hand into the Seine and had the buyer then destroy his receipt. Et, voila! Art.

keets · May 9, 2017 8:50AM

I've had some recent correspondence with the creator of these interesting Tokens and he was kind enough to share some pictures, actually scans. the one below is in Gold. since the US Mint is currently doing computer design and using lasers on the manufacturing of dies it would seem that he was a little ahead of his time.

COCollector · May 9, 2017 11:32AM

10-year old thread. But still interesting.

I found this 1/2 oz silver version for sale on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-Squared-Quarter-X-301b-Half-Ounce-999-Silver-PCGS-PR65-Interesting-Piece-/232166243194?hash=item360e2fbb7a:g:7NIAAOSwMVdYIPEL

carabonnair · May 9, 2017 12:04PM

The date doesn't make any sense - 1849, 1936 or 2025 are square numbers. The square root of 1984 is 44.54211...

epcjimi1 · May 9, 2017 12:21PM

Things that make you say "Huh"

IGWT logo. Whatever to the square.

@keets said:
I've had some recent correspondence with the creator of these interesting Tokens and he was kind enough to share some pictures, actually scans. the one below is in Gold. since the US Mint is currently doing computer design and using lasers on the manufacturing of dies it would seem that he was a little ahead of his time.

ricko · May 10, 2017 6:23AM

Well.. the mint has made the Baseball coin.... Other mints have done strange shapes... Perhaps a square coin is in our future.... Would not surprise me at all... Cheers, RickO

keets · May 10, 2017 6:42AM

I can't speak for the creator of this Token, but my feeling is that it had nothing to do with trying to "re-shape" what our coinage looked like. it was most probably all about using a computer program in the design with a coin being chosen as the model. remember, this was in the early 1980's when computers were in their infancy and almost unheard of outside of the Government and Industry.

I'm only now getting to know the man who made these, but his background is technology and Graphic Design, he said he did the programming on a computer where he was working, and that was around 35 years ago. we have come a long way since then.

illini420 · May 10, 2017 6:53AM

@keets said:
I can't speak for the creator of this Token, but my feeling is that it had nothing to do with trying to "re-shape" what our coinage looked like. it was most probably all about using a computer program in the design with a coin being chosen as the model. remember, this was in the early 1980's when computers were in their infancy and almost unheard of outside of the Government and Industry.

I'm only now getting to know the man who made these, but his background is technology and Graphic Design, he said he did the programming on a computer where he was working, and that was around 35 years ago. we have come a long way since then.

That is pretty much correct... the booklet that came with these quarters explains how they came about. Basically computers were used to "square the circle" and stretched the quarter design into a square shape. The results of the computer shown in the booklet came out a little funky so parts of it were sort of smoothed out to make it a more presentable piece. I've bought/sold a few of these over the last few years. Fun pieces and PCGS does a great job at imaging them, even though their TrueView template isn't really set up for a square coin.

That PCGS PR65 shown above in another post in the TrueView is mine... gets lots of looks at shows!!

Also had a PCGS PR66:

And a PCGS PR63:

I too have had correspondence with the creator of these pieces... tried to get him to sell me one of the gold examples but he would never give a price... and I had a feeling that the price would have been too high for me anyways as he seems to be holding them pretty tight... having held them for 30+ years now!

messydesk · May 10, 2017 7:44AM

It would seem determination of the shape and position of text and devices was computed, but then the result had to be adapted to the finished design. I'm curious as to the computing power that was used to generate the squared coin. 10 lines of unoptimized, single-threaded C++ code full of trig and square roots on my 2012-vintage PC (2.6 GHz i7-3720) makes a 200x200 pixel squared quarter out of a round one in 11 milliseconds. High-enough resolution to understand the general shape everything needed to be, and small enough for the entire image to fit inside 40 KB of RAM that you would have on a 1982 IBM PC with 128 KB of memory and a 4.7 MHz 8088 with no native floating point capability.

illini420 · May 10, 2017 8:21AM

In the booklet that comes with the coin, it says:

First, a coordinate system was drawn over an enlarged photograph of a quarter, so that the x/y values of the coin's surface points could be mapped with the sensor pen of a digitizer and then stored in a computer memory. Next, a program was written to define the formula of the circle-to-square projection. This program instructed the plotter to produce the drawing of the Squared Quarter.

messydesk · May 10, 2017 8:33AM

I was wondering what the image acquisition pipeline looked like. A long way from pointing a phone at the coin.

mercurydimeguy · May 10, 2017 9:04AM

Here is my example...

Zoins · November 17, 2017 7:51PM

@edix2001 said:
You could say that Andor Orand was the first with a satirical computer designed coin, and Daniel Carr being the most popular creator these days.
I just received a copy of Unusual World Coins 4th edition, and have the numbers on the Squared Quarter:

X # 301 CuNiZn Mint. 330
X # 301a 1/4 Oz. Au Mint. 1,310
X # 301b 1/2 Oz. Au Mint. 602
X # 301c Bz Mint. 15
X # 301d Ag Mint. 12
X # 301e Br Mint. --

Great info on the metals and mintages! I wonder why Br is listed with -- for the mintage. Has anyone seen the other metals?

Here's some more info from ATS:

Zoins · November 17, 2017 7:55PM

@illini420 said:

I too have had correspondence with the creator of these pieces... tried to get him to sell me one of the gold examples but he would never give a price... and I had a feeling that the price would have been too high for me anyways as he seems to be holding them pretty tight... having held them for 30+ years now!

Perhaps putting out a very high offer could get him to consider?

illini420 · November 17, 2017 8:03PM

@Zoins said:

@edix2001 said:
You could say that Andor Orand was the first with a satirical computer designed coin, and Daniel Carr being the most popular creator these days.
I just received a copy of Unusual World Coins 4th edition, and have the numbers on the Squared Quarter:

X # 301 CuNiZn Mint. 330
X # 301a 1/4 Oz. Au Mint. 1,310
X # 301b 1/2 Oz. Au Mint. 602
X # 301c Bz Mint. 15
X # 301d Ag Mint. 12
X # 301e Br Mint. --

Great info on the metals and mintages! I wonder why Br is listed with -- for the mintage. Has anyone seen the other metals?

Here's some more info from ATS:

X-301a .999 silver 1/4 oz

X-301b .999 silver 1/2 oz

I have one of the 1/4 oz. squared quarters... need to send it in for grading some day

Zoins · November 17, 2017 8:18PM

Here's some more information on the artist, Andor Orand who has squared the quarter, mark and yen.

Website: http://andor-orand.com/
Square Deal: http://www.sqrdl.com/

The following site has photos of 9 coins including a bronze quarter quarter and silver deutsche mark:

http://www.sammlung-haupt.de/artists/20562/andor-orand/works/225760/squared-quarter/

Of note, Andor's website says the gold version is for sale:

Zoins · November 17, 2017 8:29PM

Lead die trials and the dies themselves have been donated to the Smithsonian along with other pieces. Has anyone ever seen the dies or die trials at the Smithsonian?

The below is also from Andor's sqrdl.com website.

dcarr · November 17, 2017 8:36PM

It looks like the "Squared Quarter" was graphically warped, then sculpted/engraved by hand from that warped drawing.

Anyway, I tried a couple processing experiments, one on a photo of a "1975" quarter and another on a digital sculpture of a "1999-S" quarter. The 1999 had a slightly "stronger" warping effect. Neither of my results produced a kinked IGWT motto like the 1984 pieces.

has anyone ever seen one of the "square quarters" from the 80's?

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has anyone ever seen one of the &quot;square quarters&quot; from the 80's?

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has anyone ever seen one of the "square quarters" from the 80's?