Came across this odd 1978 quarter recently. Pretty worn --- I don't think the oddities jump out, so thus it got pretty well circulated. Oddity #1: Washington's head is indented by a circle. No biggie --- maybe someone needed a shim for a piece of heavy equipment or something like that. Oddity #2: The reverse is where it gets interesting. You can see there's a serpentine, wreath-like feature all around the coin along where the legend and denomination are. Looks almost perfectly centered. At first it doesn't look like an indentation, but rather it looks raised. But if you enlarge the image you'll see that the feature seems to have been created by a round serrated object digging into the coin and pushing the metal outwards and upwards, creating the feature. You can see this especially in the denomination section. I realize it's probably caused by a citizen looking for a spacer or testing his own die or a thousand other scenarios. On the other hand... I'm not familiar with the minting process other than it's basically blanks being pressed with dies. But there must be more steps in production that I don't know about and might explain this. Any chance this could be an error at the mint? Thank you.
DEFDAM - Definitely Damaged No Mint Errors at all. Altered after it left the Mint. That did not occur during the minting process. Welcome to CoinTalk
Looks like some kind of machine damage to me. The damage to the reverse is kind of interesting for its unusual appearance- but post-mint damage it definitely is. I second the welcome to CoinTalk. Come join my giveaway, if you're so inclined.
The reverse appears to have been heated and, using some form of a tool, the surface was scraped and the resulting material deposited around the perimeter. Notice the scrape marks.
Rick, welcome aboard The CT Train. Your thread is one of the few which actually details the issues you wish clarified instead of "What's this?" Hope you enjoy the ride here and I look forward to more threads from you.
The obverse circle is probably the result of a small cylinder used to capture the coin when the reverse was altered and the resultant heat caused the coin to soften and form a ring.
I try me best to see a possible error or variety in any coin posted, That fits my coin desires. (Basically anything except pennies, I hate pennies), But I agree with the others. This is PMD. You can tell the material has been pushed outwards to create the anomalies.
