Is it just me or is it hard to find uncirculated pre-State quarters in circulation?
tightbudget
Posts: 7,299 ✭✭✭
With the exception of quarters, 10 year old cents, nickels, and dimes can all be found in uncirculated condition with a bit of looking. However, I've noticed this doesn't seem to be the case with quarters. Nearly every pre-1999 quarter I pick out of circulation, or even out of boxes of quarters from the bank appears circulated. Any reasons?
0
Comments
<< <i>I would think it difficult to find any uncirculated coins in circulation.
You took the words out of my mouth.
examples of a given coin can be found in circulation. First is the rate
of turnover in mint and FED storage. Since 1972 they've rotated out
the oldest stock first so usually this means new coins won't stay in
storage for more than three years. The states program has affected
this but it applies primarily to the states coins themselves and to a
lesser extent '96 and '98 issues.
There's also, as has been mentioned, circulating velocity. Many coins
make a one way trip to the store to a customer and his change jar.
Quarters tend to actually get used a little more and will be the first
coin pulled out of a change jar to use or cash in. Very few coins sit
for more than three years but the dimes and smaller are much more
likely to sit and tend to sit a little longer.
When considering a group of coins like "1997-D 25c's" you also have
to consider how quickly they pass from mint state to AU. Cents and
quarters average only about six transactions before enough wear ac-
cumulates to breal the luster or degrade the coin to AU. This means a
certain percentage of the '97-D's can go from one change jar to anot-
her for years before the statistical odds of actually being used catches
up with them. This used to take about six or seven years but has been
lenghten ing for many years now as the coins lose their spending power
and are more likely to sit. Now days it's around eight years for quarters
and a little longer for dimes.
If you look a little more closely at those "uncirculated" dimes from before
2001 I think you'll find they invariably have a slight disturbance in the
hair. They are really just super sliders rather than true uncs.
You can still see a very few '96 and '98 unc quarters around because it
appears the FED held a few of these back but finding even nice AU's of
other dates is getting decidely tough. The toughest, other than the early
key dates, are coins like the '84-P or the '81-D . Even nice XF's are not
seen much now days and it's hard to believe many of these were set a-
side in AU. The '77's are getting very heavily worn and are usually seen
in a very narrow range of grades.
Maybe the economy will bring more jars to coinstar and we'll see some older coins.
<< <i>what they said are the reasons you don`t find them.
What he said.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
I was excited today because I actually got a quarter that the reverse was still in nearly perfect shape...until I turned it over and saw the obverse, which had some black substance on it that I didn't try too hard to identify. It ended up in my spending jar. Which, means it'll sit there until money gets tight and then deposited at the bank.
Cents are the worst though. It's gotten to the point now where I just check them all out of habit then hoping to find something for my collection. I did find a 1962 D this week (I needed an upgrade of the one I had, and this one was) but I have not pulled something new worth keeping in months. (For coins from 1980-current, I only save the cents if they are full red)
I know that quarters had not been going into the spending jar for the last several months. We have to do our laundyr at a laundrymat and all the quarters have been going there, plus, I keep about 5 dollars worth in my pants pocket. But we made the decision recently to start putting the quarters in the change jar again, so the next time we empty it it should be more then the $250 it held. (we let it go until it gets too heavy to move easily-I want to just let it go for a few years but I have not been able to convince my family of that yet)
And quite selling circulated coins as MS67.