"Rare," "valuable" state quarters?
cameraz
Posts: 2 ✭
Several news outlets recently published a story about some state quarters minted in 2000 that have sold for thousands of dollars. These coins represented Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Virginia. All, except the NH coins, were from the Philadelphia mint, while the NH coins had the Denver mint. After a short search, I found that I am in possession of many dozens of these coins, that I collected in 2000 and haven't touched since.
After my discovery, I thought that I might possibly be rich! But my hopes were dashed when I called a local respected coin dealer, who told me that my quarters were worth no more than, well, a quarter. He explained to me that for my coins to be worth more than 25 cents each, they would have to be "flawless," without even a speck of dust on them. Now, I'm not a coin expert, but my coins are in excellent condition, having not being touched in 20 years. Surely they're worth more than 25 cents?
Please feel free to chime in and let me know what you think. Thanks!
https://www.masslive.com/news/2023/10/check-your-pockets-for-this-massachusetts-quarter-worth-3760.html
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.25 each, sorry
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What news outlets? It sounds more like Etsy or YouTube. There are probably some varieties to look for such as doubled die reverse or obverse or a misc mint error. But for 99%……maybe more, of the coins they are worth a quarter. Between 300 and 400 million of each were minted, some even more.
- Bob -
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That $3760 piece was a slabbed MS69. News stories like that with misleading titles cause a lot of problems. An MS69 quality piece by definition cannot come from pocket change.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
The link is in my original post:
https://www.masslive.com/news/2023/10/check-your-pockets-for-this-massachusetts-quarter-worth-3760.html
Several news outlets ran the same story.
As far as grades go, there have been 0 graded MS70. Out of 140,888 graded in the whole series (that is every State Quarter and mint in MS) only 332 have been graded MS70, that is .2% (two tenths of one percent). The price guide can in the thousands for MS69 but drops to double digits in MS68. Some State Quarters have a high population in MS69, such as Vermont-P and Tennessee-P have a value of $200-$400. MS69’s need to be spectacular.
The most value would probably be with errors. I imagine these would need to be spectacular as well in order for the coin to be worth the amount of money the article is claiming. The Maryland-P in MS65 for $1495 almost has to be an error coin. Price guide for that coin in MS65 is $5.
- Bob -
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
Central Valley Roosevelts
Your coin dealer is right. Unless you have silver proofs, they’re worth a quarter.
Check your local bookstore or maybe your local library.
This book will helpful in your quest.
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from the linked story in the OP:
true but, "GoBankingRates.com" is now a coin authority? and condition includes any wear or not. it includes how beat up they are. the MS69 would be all but the tiniest of a mark fro completely unmarked.
wrong. die slippage does not produce a coin the is struck twice. I guess they are not a coin authority.
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point of clarification. for all the state quarters graded the total PCGS has seen are only 140,888 out of billions made.
only 332 out of 140,888 were MS70. the 0.2% is 332/140,888 - you're thinking you're going to have a $10,000+ coin that would be #333 out of billions made. That's maybe 1 in a 5(?) billion shot. It's not impossible, but you'd also need expert judgment of "condition." No one can spend that much time with you to look over each coin for those odds. There is pcgs' "photo grade" just make sure you're looking at the wash. qtrs.
if someone paid for grading an MS65 coin, the grading fees are more than $5. a lot
the most important is that there are easy to find ungraded ms65 coins. the best source are mint sets. you could get $5 for a MS65 but, again, paying for grading is way way more costly than that.
but to give you an idea, when mint sets are bought by a coin shop, they glance at the coins. they may resell them as a whole set. if they think there's a profitable coin in there,they'll send it to pcgs. so, finding any old mint set from a dealer is likely not going to yield a profitable coin to you. You'd have to look at buying mint sets from non-collectors. And you'll need to know how to assess "condition."
If your coins are touching and lying on the table like that, it is too late (nice to see you still have the film roll cases. The metal ones work great too, but not for preserving things without scratches)
The term the clickbait stories all leave off is "Condition Rarity".
As in the coin is dirt cheap and worth face value EXCEPT in the very best of the very best of the very best condition, where it's rare because few are in that condition.
These are circulating coins. They're struck in large numbers. The dies often get over-used (it's about production for commerce and not quality for collectors so "good enough" rules). They are stamped at high speed and dumped into huge bags (where coins strike each other leaving marks), which are sent off to Contracted Coin Terminals to be counted (high-speed machines with lots of metal parts) and rolled (another high-speed machine).
From there coins are distributed to banks and other coin users. Who usually smack the rolls on the metal edge of the cash drawer to break the roll and dump the coins into a compartment where they - yep - bang around on each other.
Eventually, it ends up in somebody's hands where they have to pay money to have it graded and slabbed. Bulk grading is $14. Plus shipping & insurance. If you grade them individually, the Modern Value tier is $17.
Here's the page from our host for one of the New Hampshire quarters: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/2000-p-25c-new-hampshire/5962
There aren't all that many graded (maybe 1,800) because honestly, only a few people chasing registry set points care. Out of that 1,800 coins, 71 (4%) have received the top grade and a price guide (take it for what it's worth with a large teaspoon of salt) of $150. One notch down, 34% and $20.
Bulk grading is 100+ coins of no more than 5 date/mintmark combinations. It doesn't have to be 20-20-20-20-20, you could do 98-2 to make the 100. You set a minimum grade and pay for coins that make it and a $2 reject fee for coins that don't make your minimum.
There are a few dealers who sort through large #s of coins and pick out (pre-screen) the best. They send those off to be bulk graded and that's what is sold at shows and on eBay. If you have a good eye and can beat the odds, you can make (small) money at it.
Say you bought rolls of the 2000-P New Hampshire quarters from the mint at 42.5c each. You pick out the 100 best and submit them. 10% make MS68 and 90% make MS67. Ignoring shipping, you are at $14.425 cost for each coin (total of $1,442.50). If you sell them at full price guide (10@150 and 90@20 - $3,300). You earn $1,857.50, which you can do once for each coin until you saturate the market. Even then, 10 top pop coins are going to be a hard sell and 90 MS67 coins are even harder.
Go look at eBay - there are 5 MS67 coins offered for sale certified by our hosts for between $16-30 OBO. Click SOLD listings. One, in August, for $16.95.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Oh, and I left off that you are paying 42.5c for each coin that doesn't pass your pre-screen which you use at your shop or deposit in the bank at face value (25c losing 17.5c each). Some you can put in cardboard 2x2s and sell at shows to collectors for their books, maybe $1 each.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
If you have some nice 2004-D Wisconsin state quarters saved, look for "extra leaf's" on the corn stalks on the reverse lower left side. In fairly decent shape they are worth a hundred dollars or so in extremely fine or about uncirculated condition that you might actually be able to find. Good luck and welcome to the forum.
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I guess we don't trust the respected, trustworthy coin dealer...
@cameraz - Get yourself a box of these...
......and look for this....
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
As with anything else in life, the "worth" of something depends on supply and demand. For something to be valuable, it has to be both rare (low supply) and desirable (high demand).
You have kept dozens of these coins. So did millions of other people, both back in 2000 and up until the present day. That's hundreds of millions of coins kept. This does not speak well for "rarity". As a general rule, anything that you could easily obtain dozens of 20 years ago is highly unlikely to be "rare" by any reasonable definition of that word. As for demand, yes, millions of Americans are trying to "complete the set" of state quarters, but most of them already have an example of the commoner quarters and do not need more of them badly enough to want to pay above face value for them. So demand is low. Only a tiny proportion of those millions of state quarter collectors are "serious enough" about collecting them that they want to pursue and pay big money for high-grade examples. So, apart from the absolute top-grade, these coins are all extremely cheap.
And yes, "Check your pockets for a coin worth $$$$" is a highly misleading headline when the valuable coin in question is in absolutely pristine condition. The original owner of that coin certainly did not "find it in their pocket". If on the extremely slim chance just such a pristine and valuable MS69 coin were to enter someone's pocket, it wouldn't still be pristine, valuable, or MS69 by the time they took it out of their pocket again. That's how fragile an MS69 coin is.
So, your coins will almost certainly not be worth a fortune. But are your coins worth more than 25 cents? You might be able to sell the nicer ones on eBay for a dollar or two, depending on your eBay skills. But people walk into coin dealers all the time with rolls of 20 year old state quarters, so your typical coin dealer doesn't desperately need to buy more of them in bulk. They wouldn't pay more than face, because they simply can't sell very many of them for more than face. They're a business, not a charity; they need to be able to make a profit on every coin they sell, and 20 year old state quarters are really hard to make a profit out of. They will likely end up banking (or giving away in change) a large proportion of any such coins they've "bought" for face value anyway.
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