Only 15 years ago nice high end XF's of this date weren't hard to find. Lots of these had been set aside over the years since it's the oldest date and eventually re-released. Even VF's of all the older dates are getting tough.
On Washington quarters, look at the eagle's breast feathers on the reverse - if they're sharp (diagonal lines with a 'diamond pattern'), the coin is probably AU - if the breast feathers are worn at all, then it's a lower grade - keep searching for those nicer circulated coins
1965 was the first year of clad quarters so they were saved by the roll. Yes it's nicer than most but there are still rolls upon rolls in closets waiting so see the light of day. Every now and then one of those rolls finds the light.
Hmm. Old timers who were around collecting in the '60's have told me the focus was on hoarding silver and BU 1960's clad was largely ignored and saving them wasn't really a thing. This is said to have resulted in clad (especially original rolls) from the '60's being hard to find in above-average condition. I suppose there are outliers who stashed away a few original clad rolls from the era here and there, though.
I agree there were many millions saved. But $10 was a great deal of money in those days and when there were no buyers at all by 1970 these got re-released in massive quantities. The mint and FED adopted FIFO accounting in 1972 so they had to begin rotating their coin stocks. It appears that a lot of 1965 quarters had been stuck in the backs of the vaults. They were still being released in mid-1975 along with lots of '69-D dimes and various other old clad. Most of the late release 1965 coins were very poorly made, probably because they were minted late in the year. In the mid-'80's there were huge numbers of XF and AU '65 quarters in circulation along with some workhorses that had been circulating since Thanksgiving of '65 and were getting quite thin. Most of these thin ones from that era are probably gone now because the FED is apparently been withdrawing heavily worn coin for a couple years now. But rolls of these are hardly common enough now to account for many XF's or AU's in circulation. They wholesale at $135 which is pretty astounding considering the fact that there's just no demand for clad quarters. The '67 is even higher which makes sense because most hoarders were giving up setting aside new coin by this time. The '67 tends to look a lot better which will affect current demand (weak as it is).
When the metal content is changed the older coins are hoarded but the new coins are also hoarded in the first year. This also applies to a design change.
Some original clad rolls are almost impossible even in typical condition. The best example of this is the '69-P quarter roll. There aren't any!! A few wholesalers sold them right up through 1981 but they were exceedingly poor sellers and there total sales appear to be less than about 500 rolls for most dates. They often bought back these rolls over the years to make complete roll sets and most of these were sold to wholesalers who made date/ denomination sets. I literally haven't seen an intact roll of '69 quarters since 1969 despite a great deal of looking. I didn't save any in '69 because they were all very poor coins and it was three years before I started collecting clad. But I just happen to have three "original" '69 rolls anyway and they are very "gemmy". It happened when I got two nice BU '69's in change at a coin shop. When I inquired he had recently put four rolls in the till he bought from a customer. There were still about 130 in it. Most rolls you see are actually from mint sets. This is just as well since mint set quality is far better.
