Look what showed up on my table todaytoday

I give up. It's missing a clad layer. You should quickly send it off to PCGS for attribution, grading and slabbing.

 

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I'm going to be the contrarian again and say that it IS a missing clad layer. The early pictures distorted to color a great deal. The last two images are much better and to me are convincing. The weight is also believable for a missing clad error.

 

The weight seems right. The color of the reverse doesn't look like a normal reverse.
That's why I thought both sides had been damaged. (Perhaps crisper pictures.)
And the obverse looks similar to environmental damage.
Be a great find if it is missing a clad layer. Good luck.

 

I'm inclined to agree with you based upon the weight. Normal Qtr = 5.67 grams (+/_)
1 gram is significant.

As for the color? It's all in the photography and wear on the coin.

 

Since the quarter has a given weight besides tolerances, of 5.67 grams, and the density of Cu is 8.96 g/cm3 and is 91.67% of total, and nickle ( only in the clad clad) has density of 8.90 g/cm3 and is 8.33 % of total. Since the density is almost the same , 0.06, we can simplify the math by multiplying 8.33% ( .0833 X wt. of nominal coin 5.67) and the mount of nickle = 0.47 gram/2 ( per side) = 0.237 grams per side .

So a clad quarter with only one clad side should weigh 5.670- 0.237 = 5.44grams.

So I do not believe it is missing one clad layer. Math somewhat rounded and we do not know the accurate weight of the original quarter within tolerances , but it is harder to think the missing clad would be that much heavier. Also the tolerances of the balance used may be way off. Getting the coin to another scale to validate the weight would be necessary .

 

I'm sure you can tell this is top 2 3rd party grading company. Not my coin

 

Well, best of luck to you, perhaps the US Mint got the specs wrong. If its my math or data, I will correct it, but unfortunately, I have no pull with TPGs. If the specs are correct and the math is close, more was missing/removed from the TPG coin above than just the clad. IMO. Jim

 

Your calculation seems to assume that the cladding layers are pure nickel. They aren't; they're 75% copper, 25% nickel. So I think your estimate is low by a factor of four. The weight of the clad layer on each side should be just under one gram.

 

The clad is 25% nickel, but all of the nickel is only in the clad layers, so half of the nickel amount would be in each clad layer, as the core is pure copper. I didn't
assume the clad was 100%, just that 100% of the nickel was in the clad layers, and half of the total amount would be equal on each side. So the loss of one clad layer would be half the amount. Jim

 

But such coins aren't missing the nickel, they're missing the clad layer -- which is a layer of alloy that's 25% nickel, 75% copper. Yes, they only lose a bit less than a quarter-gram of nickel, but they lose almost a full gram of weight.

By contrast, if some environmental process leached away the nickel while leaving the copper intact, it couldn't reduce the weight by more than a quarter-gram per side -- assuming it could leave the copper intact, which is actually pretty unlikely.

 

Ok, I see your point and concede to the math should stick with the other sciences! Jim

 

Having difficulty finding what the weight of the copper core is (in a quarter), or what the 2 outer layers weigh.
Everything says that a quarter missing an outer layer should weigh 1 gram less (4.7). So does that mean the copper core weighs 3.7 and BOTH outer layers weigh 2.0? That seems heavy to me.

 

Not a missing clad layer. Something else happened to that coin after it left the mint.

If the OP is still convinced that it is a proper missing clad layer, he should spend his $50 or more to have someone that has less experience than many on here to give an opinion also.

 

Great effort though Jim!

 

I read that Fermi once made a math error when explaining quantum effects, but continued on to see what happened, and discovered a new relationship. Luckily for Chicago , it didn't happen as he was calculating how far he could go with his chain reaction before stopping under the football stadium. I keep getting confused with the clad lincolns, where the clad is 100%, my bad