Quarter w/ Copper Sides?

Possibly this will redeem my ignorance this morning with the penny/nickel debacle...still learning!
I found this 2000 Massachusets state quarter! Maybe I have a real error this time! LOL Raised copper sides up over the lip of the coin.

 

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I would say that quarter was either spooned or tumbled in a dryer. (See another recent thread about a dime with a similar edge. One explanation was it was tumbled in a dryer.)

 

:thumb: What Hobo said!


Lisa, Based on the Nickel you posted earlier and not this Quarter, you need to take the glue...spoons and dryer away from the kids! :goofer:


Frank

 

"not errors" thread?

This photo from LisaMicheleL is perfect & it might be nice to add to a permanent thread titled "not errors" with an administrators description of something like "post mint damage possibly caused by spooning or continuous impacts in a rotating mechanism such as a clothes dryer"

Every time CT gets a good photo of a confirmed non error, it could be added to the thread.

I know two dealers that keep permanent records like this to show people that walk in with similar non-errors.

Very best regards,
collect89

 

LMAO! Okay Okay I get it! Now I'm an example for people...Thanks!
Just kidding! I really appreciate you guys taking time to answer my questions. I'm happy to help, even it is a WHAT NOT TO DO photo.
I'm off to the library for books but I doubt you've seen the last of me.
Have a great night!
One last thing...can someone explain the "spooning" mentioned earlier? Thx

 

take a spoon and hit the rim of the coin repeatedly until it gets wider and flater. Drill out the center and it makes a ring!

 

Wow! I had no idea. Never seen that before.

 

I saw that in make magazine. Or somewhere like that.

 

Interesting...since it's started maybe I'll get a spoon and finish the ring! Who has that kind of time anyway?
So if you're new to the coin world but eager to learn and have oh maybe 40lbs of coins to sort and a library card what do you recommend?
Coin error books, collectible coin books and start looking for common errors and not so common coins?

 

Red Book and walter breen encyclopedia to us coins

 

I'm on it! Thank you again!

 

Spooning, happens only with silver coins. Spooning does not happen with clad coins.

The theory should be "clothes dryer" unless proven otherwise. It is the more correct choice.

This coin of course is one that was stuck in aclothes dryer fin for awhile.

A coin like this should never be diagnosed as spooned...or something else. Clad coins are never spooned.

Thanks,
Bill

 

what is your rationale for this statement?

 

Hi Lisa,
The spooning of coins was popular among populations of persons who had a lot of time on their hands... that is, before the government started giving them plastic spoons to eat with.
Also, it was popular with soldiers in the field, and they would often give them to their sweethearts when the returned home. The nickel was probably the most common coin to use because of its finished size relative to the size of an average finger. I even saw guys using them for pinky rings.

The things I learned from my family when I was a kid. Yikes!
jeankay

 

Hi,

The rationale is manifold:

1) noone has ever turned up a spooned coin made of clad material.

2) Nickel is much too hard a material to be spooned. This includes five cent coins as well as copper-nickel clad coins.

If you realize how much pressure is needed to strike a coin made of such material you would conclude that "spooning" a coin made of these materials is a futile exercise.

3) Coins composed of nickel or a copper-nickel clad composition, when struck, will wear out annealed, work hardened dies into a very worn state more quickly than coins made of other materials.

Essentially, you would wear out the spoon before you wore out the coin. The process would take years if it could even be done.

JeanKay, please show me one completed ring that was spooned from a nickel.

In fact a google search for the term "spooned nickel" with quotes produces 0 (Zero) results. That's not just an image search that's the entire google search system. If there was one out there, someone would have said something about it or posted a picture of one.

The story you got about spooned coins was accurate up to the point where a nickel would be used.

Why I am beating my head against the wall over this is beyond me. I am merely trying to educate people as to how these damaged coins came to be. Real spooned coins do exist that are made of silver or gold. Those metals are workable. Unless machined, and that is not "spooned" there is no known copper-nickel clad coin that has been turned into a ring by spooning.

When a silver coin is in the process of being spooned, you don't get the kind of surface damage on the obverse and reverse portions that is like the damage caused by a coin that is tumbling with other coins in the fin of a clothes dryer for a period of time. That is why anyone who has ever seen both, spooned coins and coins that came right out of a dryer fin after having been stuck inside one for months knows what the difference in appearance is. It really is sooo simple.

Thanks,
Bill

 

Bill,

You do realize that someone here on C.T. is now going to spoon some Quarters and possibly other coinage to prove you wrong, right? Although the subject of making rings from coins turned up, we were originally talking about the damage to the Ops' coin. I have seen many spooned coins and in my opinion, the amount of damage that was done to the Ops' coin, can be done with a spoon.


Frank

 

The edge Look similar to my 1967 Dime. The Question is. Mint never tumble coins to eliminate sharp edges? The dime is on the top of the cents.

 

The edge look similar to my 1967 dime. The question is. Mint never toumble coins to eliminate sharp edges? The dime is in the top of the cents.

 

No, the mint does not tumble coins after they are minted to dull the edges.

They do have a washing process and in the case of dollar coins a burnishing process that does tumble the planchets before they are struck into coins. It is done for a short period of time as a way to clean impurities from the surfaces of the planchets and to polish them up a little bit.

It is not done to a point where it would damage the planchets as that would be counterproductive.

Frank...Anyone is welcome to try to spoon a clad coin. If they do it to prove me wrong, it still doesn't change what the facts are about these coins now.

Also, it would still take so long that the person would either give up or die trying

Thanks,
Bill

 

(((JeanKay, please show me one completed ring that was spooned from a nickel)))

This is not possible because all the people I am talking about are deceased.
My uncles who were in the US Navy, my dad and his buddies in the Army Air Corp (you know, WWII before the US Air Force was formed).
My grandfather also made things from nickels when he had a need.
These people were exceptionally inventive and used whatever they had to make do.

I think you will find that a lot of people know about these 'arts and crafts' type of items that people made out of whatever the artists had in hand. What about hobo coins, which from what I understand were often made from nickels? What about prison art? Some mighty amazing art was done in prisons from simple materials.

Oh, I know of a lot of things that are NOT in Google. It certainly isn't a know-it-all place for research.

jeankay