I purchased a 1901 Barber quarter and it's worn. I know that these quarters are supposed to weigh 6.25 grams. I just checked how much mine weighs and it's only 5.63 grams. That's 90% of the standard weight. Even if it's worn, I don't see how it could be off by 10%, since it doesn't have holes or large gashes. Could this be a fake? I checked and it's not magnetic.
Yep, when they're worn down to AG, they can easily lose 10% of their weight. It's even more pronounced in dimes, less pronounced in halves or dollars. I've got dimes that weigh about 80% of nominal.
All coins of the mint have a nominal weight and tolerance weight. In the case of your coin , it could have started out from the mint as low as 6.25 minus the tolerance of +/- 0.097 grams = 6.153grams.
Looks legit. Look at the rim at the top of the obverse too. Curious if it's been filed some as its narrower though that could be strike issue too
The mint has done studies of circulated coinage which was returned to them, and compared the weights with the nominal weight. It found that on average, heavily circulated dimes weighed about 5% less than their full weight. A heavily worn specimen could easily weigh 10% less.
I'm curious whether that study was done recently, or in the days of silver coins. "Heavily circulated" clads tend to maintain more of their weight. I found that dimes can lose up to 20% of their weight (these were admittedly circulated "much more than average"). Slick Barber or Standing Liberty quarters could be 10% down; slick Barber halves tended not to lose even that much, maybe 5-7%, I think. This isn't surprising -- coins lose metal from friction over their surface, and the smaller the coin, the greater its surface area relative to its weight. I really should go back and weigh more coins.
