i had a yard sale a couple weeks ago and after looking through the change i found a strange state quarter. its a 2000 Virginia D, the wierd thing is there is no copper evident on the edge like a typical reg quarter. it is not a silver coin, thats for sure. was wondering if anyone has found or heard of this. i havent been able to get any answers about it. ther one dealer in town glanced at it and said the silver jus hasnt worn off yet. now that seems a bit of a strech of an explanation to me. he jus handed it back to me then walked away leaving me standing there even more confused. any info would be great. THANX
OK first what is the mint mark second can yo give us a picture of both the coin and edge. I know this is very hard to do but without a picutre it's very hard to give and opinion. Tim
Welcome to CoinTalk, Erickson. Those are more common than you would think. Hmmm. No wonder you are confused. If it is not a silver coin how could it be that the "silver has not worn off yet"? Before I give you the probable answer let me first explain how that con was made. Your coin is a "clad" coin. It has a copper core that is sandwiched in between two layers of copper-nickel. (Copper-nickel - or cupro-nickel - is somewhat silverish in color but it is not silver.) The clad coins start out as a coin strip that is rolled up into a coil. The strip is fed into a blanking machine that punches out coin blanks - round, flat discs of metal. (This process is much like cutting out cookies with a cookie cutter from dough that has been rolled out thin with a rolling pin.) Sometimes the coin blanks do not shear off smoothly and the bottom layer of copper-nickel smears along the edge of the blank hiding the copper core. The blank with the hidden copper core goes through the rest of the coining process and gets struck as a clad coin that appears to be missing the copper core. If you feel so inclined you should weigh your coin and compare its weight to a clad quarter. If your coin weighs about 5.7 grams it is a common clad quarter. If your coin is significantly more or less than 5.7 grams then its composition may not be correct in which case you should seek expert advice. Hope that explains what you probably have.
You could have a rare error coin! Go weigh it and if the weight differs, that coin could be missing a copper layer! Might wanna get it graded!
most likely what the dealer was refering to is the coin came from one of the Home Shopping Network silver plated sets and the plating isn't worn off yet. I find the gold plated in circulation from time to time. Richard
