Help IDin a State Quarter oddity

[BBcardsRI]

Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Well it is odd to ME anyway... really odd as a matter of fact.

I busted a TON of FED rolls (over $1-1.5k) of quarters today during my 8am-3pm bank roadtrip here in Rhode Island and Mass. and along with nailing a very nice and shiny 1964 and an average looking 1941 (in addition to the silver halves I scored along with the TON TON TON of clad junk ones), I came across a rim that was silver in a roll and popped it out thinking it was my third silver quarter... since the rim screamed US quarter as opposed to Canadian which I am getting rather good at identifying at first glance.

But I popped it out and saw the new style state quarter washington head then turned it around to see the Rhode Island back (my home state... woot!) then I checked the rim to make sure I popped the right one out. I DID pop the right one out... so naturally I checked the mint mark thinking I found a silver proof... but the mint mark is a P and redbook lists the silver proof and clad proof as being an S mint.

The rim is COMPLETELY silver in color... not a speck of copper color, and I've busted enough shiny new state quarters including COMPLETELY new, unc. rolls to know a SHINY yet CLEARLY copper rim from a COMPLETELY silver looking rim.

The quarter is shiny and new looking for a 2001 quarter... more so than at least 99.9% of the ones you would see, but looks simply new and not like a proof/cameo/frosted type coin, etc.

It also doesn't appear to have been dipped in anything, or been obviously plated, and the rim is distinct and new looking and not filed or anything like that.

I have run across some rims on older pre-state coins whose rims are completely smooth and which are 80-95% silver in color, but all of them have at least SOME copper along part of the rim and are easily distinguised as non-silver by the rim alone (which is always smooth and not perforated). I've NEVER seen anything like that on a state quarter and certainly not one in this good of a condition.

So... is there another version of state quarters aside from the normal P and D and the two S mint mark coins that has a P mintmark? Or perhaps I just have some oddball type thing going on here?

Any help or suggestions would be great, thanks.

~Dave

 

[Silver_Fox]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

All nickel, no copper showing.
PS, there are no Fed rolls. Are we talking machine re-rolls?

 

[65gt350]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

My guess is that it is one of those plated coins that you see advertised on HSN or other places. If you think it is from a nickel blank just weigh it a nickel is 5 grams.

HH,

65GT350

 

[alpha105]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

All nickel, no copper showing.

Vote

 

[BBcardsRI]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

I call them FED rolls because I hate the FED and I hate these kind of rolls... ease of convenience you could say. =) They are in actuality the standard rip and tear non-reuseable rolls as opposed to customer rolls.

As far as all nickel no copper showing... that would just make it an oddball coin right? How often do these things get popped out of the machine like this... with NO copper showing? Never seen one like before and I have looked through LOTS of quarters.

~Dave

 

[low xtreme]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

i've found 4 or 5 of them too.

 

[BBcardsRI]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Was at a coin shop today and saw they were selling "platinum" sets of state quarters... same five coin setup and backing as like a normal proof set...

I had never heard of them before?

Anyone familiar with them...

~Dave

 

[65gt350]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Was at a coin shop today and saw they were selling "platinum" sets of state quarters... same five coin setup and backing as like a normal proof set...

I had never heard of them before?

Anyone familiar with them...

~Dave

Dave,

These were the plated sets I was talking about in my earlier response. You can find gold plated and platinum plated sets of state quarters all over the place. HSN, USA Weekend, QVC etc.. They just don't tell you they are plated. They use words like layered in 24K gold or layered in solid platinum etc..

Here are a few links

http://www.hsn.com/collectibles/2006-layered-24k-gold-platinum-state-quarter-set_p-2296537_xp.aspx

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=260264742777

65GT350

 

[BBcardsRI]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Thanks for the links.

All those platinum and gold dipped sets and stuff though seem like some very shiny proof quality coins... whereas the one I found, though being in VERY nice shape is not proof shine quality... just normal very shiny quality.... so perhaps I just have an oddball no copper showing rim state quarter like some other people have suggested.

Thanks for all the help guys.

~Dave

 

[jewelerdave]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Weight it, see if its maybe a nickel blank that was struck by a quarter die, it does happen sometimes and looks like it is all correct, not common but does happen.
I saw a 64 that was struck on a nickel once, that was a weird one. Defiantly worth checking as they bring a heck of a premium.

 

[BBcardsRI]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

Thanks for the tip Dave.

I will have to borrow my friend's digital scale to get a good reading on it and see if it helps tell me what it is.

Thanks again.

~Dave

 

[XX]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

The explanation could be very simple.

When a blank is stamped out, the top layer smears across the other layers. You can see this effect in virtually every coin you come across. Believe it or not, each coin has three layers (which you all probably already knew) with the center layer being 50% of the coins thickness almost perfectly centered within the coin. It just doesn't look like it because the edge is smeared. If you were to grind away a portion of the coin, you would be able to see how the layers are spaced.

I see it occasionally, but it is extremely rare, that the top layer is smeared completely across the copper layer. Even then you can usually rotate the coin and see some spec of copper peaking out. It may be that OP's quarter just has the copper layer completely covered from this effect.

First test to perform is to weigh the coin (as suggested above). Target weight is 5.7 grams. I forget the range, but it's probably like plus or minus 0.3 grams (the mint's spec is very forgiving for light or heavy planchets). A silver planchet would be 6.3 grams. A nickel planchet would be 5 grams (but I don't believe a nickel planchet would spread out enough to form the reeds on the edge properly (at least not on the 25¢/5¢ errors that I've seen).

 

[XX]

Re: Help ID'in a State Quarter oddity

A second test would be to pass the coin through a coin validator. If you have access to a vending machine (meaning lawful access to the inside of it), you can drop the coin through and see if it is accepted as a quarter. Chances are if it's a wrong planchet, it will be rejected. Most vending machines even reject silver coins despite their signature being very close to cupro-nickel planchets.