1989 quarter no mm

I was working as a cashier in 1989 when I found this quarter without the mint mark. I have not been able to find a listing for it in the Red Book. Recently, I took it to a coin buyer who could not find a listing for it in his book or on the internet. Any ideas where I might find a listing on it?

 

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Welcome. It's worth a quarter and it was minted in Philadelphia. Philly seldom places mint marks on their coins, may be never puts mintmarks on their coins.

 

Yes, I did find a listing for the 1989P quarter as it was supposed to have the mint mark. However, I do vividly recall that in 1989 ALL quarters were supposed to have a mint mark. The error was even reported in the news. Here is a link to one of the articles.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/27/u...ittle-things-can-mean-a-lot.html?pagewanted=1

 

The Mint's duplication by "injecting oil" tends to confirm the most likely source - a grease-filled die.

My guess is that the lack of recent references means that it turned out to be quite common, and therefore share the value of most filled-die errors, which is not much of a premium, if any, over full impressions.

 

Next week it will be 30 years since that was true!

 

These were pretty popular at one time and sold for prices in excess of $30. There were also a few '88-P's without mint marks being traded.

This wasn't an overly unusual occurance back in those days but the '89 got got a lot of attention. There are probably still a few people who'd want it. I've seen only two or three with faint mint marks and still haven't seen one of these without a mint mark so they are quite uncommon.

 

By the looks of the motto, I'd say it was a grease filled MM, not a missing MM.

 

Thank you for your answers. If there is a faint mint mark, I cannot find it with a magnifying glass. I will have to find someone with more experience than myself to look at it. Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone in my area.

 

As I tried to say there were some of these made without a trace of a mintmark and they were very popular and expensive at one time. They were the result of debris filled dies. They must be pretty rare since I've never seen one despite looking at thousands of rolls over the years.

The interest died out though and finding a buyer or seller might be difficult.

 

pretty neat find then.

 

Fascinated again on this forum!! Livin' and learning on CT. :hail:

 

A quarter, huh? You send me every one you have, and I'll give you a quarter (or more) if you want.

The first one was discovered by a friend of mine, who lived around the corner from me. Gary Gasparini is his name. It was photo'd, and made cover of Coin World Oct '89.

Harry Foreman dealer was paying $75 a piece in Nov. '89 (see ad). By Dec. '89, he was paying $150 a piece (see ad that month), because of rarity. Had Gore invented the internet in '89, they would have gone to $1,000+.

I have 17 of them, most BU/AU, and I got them all within a few months of Oct. '89. I have about a dozen more with shadow P, also BU/AU. I think no one in the world has more.

Since I have so many, and got them all in '89 and '90, I reasoned thusly: they went from the mint, to Fed Res Bank in Richmond, and from there, most went to Greenville NC, where the first was found, and where I was working at a laundromat (quarters by the thousands), most directly from the bank, in new rolls.

Do your homework before you post. Of course, in the case of this coin, the web won't tell you as much as I can

 

Not true. I have several presidential business strikes with the P mm and a 95 Washington marked with a P as well.

It's random, but not never.

 

You could stand to follow your own advice. Perhaps try the forum rules for starters. I expect a book report on Friday.

 

Very nice imformative post sir. We appreciate the background.

I do think the OP had done some homework though, and was simply coming here for the exact answer that you provided. That is all we hope for here is collectors helping collectors. Some of us are better at researching than others.

I hope his response helped OP. I agree it appears to be a grease filled die. When we say "grease filled", its not just grease but metal filings in the grease than can acumulate. This grease can be hard enough to suppress details from the die transferring to the planchet. That is the most common cause nowadays of design missing from coins.

Chris

 

It wasn't meant to offend fretboard. But he DID make an unqualified (and unQUANTIfied) statement.

I do it too, and if you can correct me, in a civil manner, I welcome it.



And now, I'm trying to find web info on the monthly rag that had Gary's coin on the cover. It was not bound like a magazine, but more like a newspaper. And it might not have been called Coin World, but maybe Numismatic News (the month and year is correct tho'); does anyone know if this media is still in print?

 

NN is still in print. I have a subscription. THey also publich World Coin News and a couple others.

 

What you relate is all quite true, but then it was realized that it was not a case of the mintmark being missing from the die, but rather a grease filled die and the value dropped to $3. Shortly thereafter the price dropped to near 25 cents. There was similar excitement briefly over NH quarters that were missing the mintmark but it turned out to be the same thing just a grease filled die and now those have no value other than as a curiosity. (But the question still comes up with some regularity as some new collector excited announces his discovery of a NH quarter with no mintmark.) The 1982 no mintmark dime on the other hand was actually from a die that did not receive a mintmark and those DO have collector value.

 

I'd say there is still collector interest in the '89- 'NMM" quarter. It certainly isn't as much interest as back in '89/ '90 but there are still collectors who want to own this coin. There's the seed company quarter that I've always desired to own and would pick it up in a heartbeat if I saw it at a reasonable or excellent price. There's the "squared quarter" 1 oz round I'm still interested in as well as this coin and several contemporary counterfeits. I'd love to own the '64 clad quarter but probably missed my chance on that one.

It certainly won't be an easy sell for $150 any longer but many people would pay well over 25c.

 

This is a good site. People very rarely mean to offend.

All the papers at the time ran stories on this and it was Numis News that highlighted it the most if memory serves.