Thread: how easy is it to find Bicentennial quarters in circulation

i had a few when growing up but havent seen any in over ten years intill last month


every day at work ill put a dollor in the pepsi machine and hit the return button just to check for silver when i have a spare few minutes. ill do this a couple times before purchasing the drink. (no silver yet keep finding a lot of 65 quarters tho)


a month ago i found a Bicentennial quarter and kept it last week found another
and today found the best looking one so far

They come in your change every so often. So it is fairly easy.

When the Bicentennial's came out in 75 they were kind of cool since there really was no similar thing in recent memory then. A lot of people snapped them up and kept them. Since the quarter was the only one that was widely circulated this was the one most people only saw or were familiar with.

Eventually people saw that there was really no premium to be had for these and many eventually rejoined circulation. This caused the 75/76 Bicentennial quarter to appear years later in better grades than other coins of the era.

I normally snag these as I find them but I won't hesitate to spend it if I need to pop for a soda or something before it makes my "junk to hold" bin. They are fairly common, I usually find them in pocket change once every couple of weeks. I seem to find these more often than the ATB or Territories quarters.

I often wondered however why the Mint didn't make a Bicentennial dime...

Originally Posted by n9jig

I often wondered however why the Mint didn't make a Bicentennial dime...

good question!

They don't seem to be near as common as bicentennial halves or bicentennial Ikes.

I get a few rolls of halves every month for the bus and probably 1/4 of them are bicentennial.

They've made a heck of a lot more quarters than halves in the past 25 years...

I find them a couple times a month when I get rolls of quarters for laundry.

Buy about 10 rolls of quarters at any given time and you're bound to find several of them. They're still plentiful.

I come across these quarters all the time, then I put them back into circulation by buying snickers bars out of the vending machine at work.

I think about 50% of the change jugs or sock drawers in America have one at least.

I feel like a lot of people have been spending them lately because I've been seeing a lot of them. I actually put a bunch in circulation recently because I had been saving them all since I was a kid and realized now that they don't have any value, so I started spending them.

These were hard to find before the states coins came out in '99. Only about one coin in 400 was a '76.

Since '99 the incidence is soaring around here. About one coin in 85 is a '76. As n9jig pointed out they tend to be very high grade since most haven't circulated very long.

I find them searching rolls. Quite common in The Boston area. I don't save them - they go right back into circulation.

I work at a bank and come across a couple every week or so

I haven't had trouble finding them in higher grades for my collection. When I was a kid they were rare, but since I started searching rolls they pop up maybe once a week or so.

My understanding as to why they didn't make a bicentennial Roosie or nickel is that it was considered but the coins were too small to adequately portray a commemorative reverse.

Got one a few days ago and spent it. I do like the reverse.
The 1976 Uncirculated 3-piece silver set is nice.