RARE Quarters In Circulation – See which rare CIRCULATION QUARTERS you should be looking for and how much they’re WORTH!
RELATED VIDEO: Other VALUABLE Quarters To Look For
RELATED ARTICLE: 25 Rare Quarters You Can Find In Pocket Change
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey! It’s Josh with The Fun Times Guide and I want to talk a bit about quarters.
Quarters are the workhorse coin in American Commerce. They are the most frequently used coins for most cash
transactions, and they are definitely among the most popular coins that people ask about here at The Fun Times Guide. And I wanted to answer a few of the questions that I frequently get. One of them being, you know, “What is a rare quarter? Which ones should you be looking for? And what are they worth?”
Long story short, you want to keep an eye out for all pre-1965 quarters — because they contain a 90% silver composition, and they’re worth multiples of face value. At this taping in late September of 2019, silver is worth about $18 an ounce — so that means that a quarter would have about$3.50 to $5 in silver content. (More or less, based on exactly where silver is sitting at the time that you’re looking to potentially sell a silver quarter to a coin dealer.
Another question commonly asked is, “What rare quarters would you look for in circulation?” That’s a very big question to ask — because it’s got a really big answer to it. Generally speaking, most quarters you find in circulation today that are made since 1965 are not worth anything more than face value. But there are a few that are. One of them (or really a couple of them) being the 1982 and 1983 Washington quarters — both from the Philadelphia and Denver Mint. You might wonder, “Why is this coin worth anything more than face value? It looks like all the rest of them. It’s a fairly recent date. It can’t be that rare.” Well, it’s not really rare in the absolute sense — but because there were no uncirculated sets made in 1982 or 1983, there were not many uncirculated quarters that were preserved from the beginning in mint condition.
Making matters worse was that during the early 80s when these coins were being struck, there was a very severe recession going on and a lot of folks who had saved rolls (or even bags) worth of quarters really couldn’t afford to do so. They were trying to pay the mortgage, take care of the rent, buy loaves of bread. You know, make sure they have milk. Make sure they have peanut butter. They couldn’t afford to save these quarters in uncirculated condition — so a lot of them got spent. So when you find a lightly circulated 1982 or 1983 quarter, kind of like this one, it’s worth holding aside — because some dealers and many collectors will pay a very small premium over face value for lightly worn 82 or 83 Washington quarters. Again, both the Philadelphia and Denver Mint. Normally, you’ll get between 30 to 40 cents for a lightly worn 1982 Philadelphia Denver quarter. A dollar or two for a lightly worn 1983 Philadelphia quarter. 75 cents or so for an 83 Denver quarter. Again, keep an eye out for these and hold them aside when you find them.
A lot of folks want to know what this guy here is worth. It’s 1976 Bicentennial quarter. As you see here, it’s got a dual date of 1776-1976 on the obverse, and on the reverse a Colonial drummer boy. This 2-year design made in 1975 and 1976 commemorates the 200th birthday of America. It’s a coin that is very common. I remember as a kid I saw a lot in circulation. You don’t find them very often anymore. A lot of them have been pulled out of circulation. So when people find one, they think it’s a rare coin and one worth holding aside.
Unfortunately, because there were so many of these made (about a billion, with a B), they’re very common — and they really have no value over face, if in worn condition like this example is here. The 2019 America the Beautiful Quarters are very common in general, but the West Point Mint in New York is striking 2 million examples of each of the 5 designs coming out in 2019. Those include the Lowell National Historical Park Quarter like you see here, as well as a number of other coins. They include the American Memorial Park War in the Pacific, the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park Quarter, and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Quarter. Those are with the West Point Mint (or “W” mintmark) — they’re worth between $10 and $15 apiece. Hang on to those.
Finally, I get questions about coins like this all the time. Now, it looks a bit different. It’s darker. It’s got some kind of dark toning around the design elements — and the lettering, it’s got a darker overall color. A lot of folks would think this is a 90% silver quarter that somehow… that the planchette maybe was a mistake and was struck with regular dies for circulation. And they think that this is some kind of like off-metal error. It’s not. You can tell it’s got the copper edge as is characteristic for a copper nickel clad quarter. Some folks who find coins like this either don’t see that the copper edge is there — or it may not be evident. And they’ll wonder if it really is a silver quarter.
One really quick way to determine whether or not you’ve got an error (you know, made of silver) or a regular clad quarter… is to simply weigh it. I’ve got here a gram scale. This cost me about $15. And I can easily find out if this coin is silver or clad by weighing it. A copper nickel clad Washington quarter weighs about 5.67 grams — more or less. This gram scale measures up to the 10th of an ounce (or 10th of a gram rather) increment. I’ll place the quarter on the scale and we will see…5.8 grams. Oops, it went to 5.7. Hang on a sec, let’s try that again because I slipped the quarter off the scale. And we see 5.7 grams — which of course rounded up from 5.67 is 5.7. This is a clad quarter. It never hurts to double-check coins that look suspicious or interesting or maybe unusual — because there are people who’ve found (discovered) off-metal errors by looking for coins that look a little unusual. And they test them out and they find out that they’ve got a real McCoy error. But as we see here, this is just a regular clad quarter. Despite its kind of silvery appearance and the darker toning around the design elements, this is a normal (dirty albeit, yes) but normal clad quarter.
So, I know I can’t answer every question in this video. But I hope that I have addressed some of the more common ones that come my way. I definitely appreciate you taking the time to watch this video. And if you have any questions about coins that you find unusual or want to know more about please drop me a line here at The Fun Times Guide in the comments section, along with a clear photo or two of the coin you want to find out more about.
I’ll always be happy to help you out the best I can. In the meantime, Josh with The Fun Times Guide again. Thank you for your time. I wish you all the best in your coin collecting journeys!
