I know someone who has a 1986 quarter, VG-F, which has 180 degree rotation error. He asked me if I had any idea what it was worth but I know almost nothing about the valuation of error coins. Can anyone help? Is there any chance it is not genuine?
Fred Weinberg has just one listing and it is a Prez dollar, MS64, with an 80 degree rotation, so you couldn't very well rely on it for pricing. Your friend should examine it very closely to make sure that it wasn't intentionally altered. This can be accomplished by reaming out part of the center of one coin just inside the rim, and removing the rim and a small layer of the face of the opposite side on a second coin to insert it inside of the other. Tell your friend to look very carefully (using high magnification) along the inside edge of the rim to see if he can detect a very fine seam. Chris
Thanks Chris. The coin looks pretty good. I was kind of hoping someone here might at least have some guidelines or pointers as to where to look to get some idea of the value.
Take a picture at an angle of the front of the coin with the back facing a mirror, so we can see what you're talking about. Also, please post separate pictures of the obverse and reverse so we may check for seams.
That was already done elsewhere. The question was posted to two different forums to compare responses. Check here: http://coinspace.org/forum/posts/id_2071/title_Rotation-error-on-quarter/
I would like to see it. This would be nearly impossible. People have intuitively primitive ideas about manufacturing processes today. But if you stop and think about it, you realize that for a die to be chucked 180 and then run, hundreds of coins would have poured out before the operator could see the problem and hit the E-stop. Goto YouTube and search for US Mint. Among them is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE2VUImgmdQ "65 to 80 million coins per day." And here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jggPpaLyKk&NR=1 20 billion per year. ... 750 per minute ... Ain't no way they make one mistake. When they make mistakes, they make 'em by the hundreds per minute. (Try it home. Try putting your refrigerator racks in backwards, or putting a blender blade in upside down. It cannot be done with a USB plug. This was all figured out over 100 years ago. ... And it speaks to the phony errors among the 100 Greatest...)
The one in the pic is a 1985. It is is real, then there are many others. I will do a search and see what I can come up with. ------------ Edit: Here you go. It is a known 180 degree rotation error. Mikediamond even owns an example of it, as you can see in this thread below. If you had posted the correct date, it would have been easier to answer your question. Great find BTW!! http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=26575&p=251056#post251056
There may be million of those in the world. Most people can't tell if it is right or wrong (including me sometimes)
There are probably only a few hundred or thousand, but very few have been found and many have been destroyed or will never be found. Congrats on the awesome coin.
Sorry. It is not my coin and I was quoting the date from memory a day after I saw it. Thanks for the information.
Learn something new every day... Mistakes happen; and they are interesting. But this coin was not a mistake. It is a phony product. If I were in the Mint Police, I would confiscate it. I have 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins by Brown, Camire, and Weinberg. Most of those "errors" are what collectors of Russian material call "novodels" i.e., "newly made." They are the result of what Don Taxay in The U.S. Mint and Coinage called "A Workshop for Their Gain."
Well, IMO, instead of value, the coin needs to be authenticated first as there are many folks out there with MAD skills at creating these even if there are "known" authentic errors. A very thin line, imperceptible to the human eye, would be at the rim on either the obverse or reverse face of the coin if it were a fake. Special lighting and either a keen eye or a microscope are needed to detect this line. There "could" also be a a hollow sound when the coin is tapped on either of the faces. Folks honing their machining skills will sometimes create these just to see if the can and literally any coin from a quarter on up is a good candidate. I have a Kennedy Half Dollar which has me leaning in both directions. Real! Fake! Real? Fake? I really should send it in for authentication but since its well circulated, its authentic value would not cover the fees to get it slabbed and knowing me, thats the first thing I'd do!
Well, I see your point. But what would it cost to get it authenticated? If it were to be deemed authentic how much would it be worth? No point in authenticating it if that would cost more than its value. Based on that link of rotation error there are only 13-30 examples known. What sort of price range are we talking about for a valuation of a coin with this number of known examples?
180's on modern coins are very rare. I bet it is easily worth 100. Maybe 2 or 3 if you slab it and eBay it. Just my estimate IMO.
