Hello everyone, As some of you know I am a member of several Facebook pages dedicated to mint errors, varieties, coin values etc. On any given day most of the coins that newbies think could be mint errors are usually post mint damage, environmental damage or clear as day alterations. Many times they ask "What type of mint error is this" followed by "How much is it worth?" I answer thier questions and get thanked less than the people who get upset and call me a moron or a hater. They even post the same coin and questions on a different Facebook page and sometimes even appear here on CoinTalk to get different opinions. Here's one I thought was intriguing.. With my answer..
It takes thick skin to try and help some folks. Some are just looking for someone to agree with them.
It all has to do with money. They think that they struck it rich and now their bubble gets popped. Been there, done that. I used to work for a credit union that offered various investment instruments. I can't count how many times someone's grandparent, great grandparent, etc. etc. would pass and during the treasure hunt throughout the house they come across an investment statement from 20 - 30 years ago. Between the time they find the document(s) and the time they call me, they've already calculated accumulative interest and all. While on the phone with them, I find in our archives that the owner had closed the account(s) years ago. I get a lot of these such callers who get super upset, even go as far as telling me that we are just telling them this so we can then keep the money. I instruct them to write a letter to the company asking for hard copies of all the documents we have showing that the owner(s) closed the account(s)/investment(s) etc. It's about 50/50 though. Some get upset while others accept it. What I get a lot of is: "Well (so in so) wouldn't have kept the document(s) in his or her safe/lock box if they weren't still active/worth money." Meanwhile I ask what's the date on the document(s) they have. I get "197X, 198X, and so forth". I kindly remind them the age of the document(s) they've found when trying to reason with them when they are upset with what I've got to tell them about the status of the investment(s). But point being, it all boils down to money. When some people get this idea that they've got money coming to them, either by estate of a loved one or a coin they came across and their bubble gets popped, they don't take it so well, in many cases.
I joined a few of those groups as well. At least 90% of some of them are damaged coins, or normal coins at super high magnification showing every abnormality. some have pretty good moderators to keep things in line, others are just a nonsense free for all. I pretty much dropped out of the worst ones. I do see you Paddy on a couple I belong to.
The sad part is that these people actually thought the Mint colored these quarters. The 'color' is often off-centered from the coin. A quick Google of 'did the US Mint ever colorized a coin' would lead him to the one-and-only colorized Purple Heart, and there's little color added to that. I'd give someone 30 cents for the quarter.
I have a cousin somewhat new to collecting that buys coins on Ebay a lot. She asked me about some of them, and I just didn't have the heart to tell her that they weren't worth much. I just said, "Nice coins."
Hopefully your cousin is spending money on these coins in small amounts. If she coin roll hunts, there's always the possibility of looking for minor doubled dies like the 1964 cent, or true errors to distinguish from the eBait.