Completed Washington Quarter Collection/Album

A June 5th purchase of an MS64 1932-D completes my 212 coin Washington Quarter (1932-1998) collection. My goal with this album was to acquire every date and mintmark for all business strike and proof issues. In A Guide Book of Washington Quarters, Q. David Bowers suggests that “a set such as the preceding is extensive and impressive.” This sounded like an intriguing “quest” so I put my best efforts forward to assemble it (minus the State Quarters) in a distinguished fashion. This album was completed one coin at a time. WQ’s have been my sole focus since I began working on its completion. It has taken me over a decade, to do so. I decided that all coins would need to meet my standards and also did everything possible to ensure all were original surfaces. The set is inconsistently consistent, meaning that every coin seems to “fit” but there’s no blast white or all toned, consistency.

It would be too much for me at the moment to convey or express the persistence, dedication, and patience granted to this set or the amount of fulfillment, memories, and experience I’m currently actualizing upon its completion. My hope was to share all of this with Coin Talk immediately, but I am going to refrain at the moment and try to keep this as a living thread. My photos don’t quite capture each coin’s qualities or flaws. Hopefully, they offer you some sense of what this album is and highlight my journey. Many of these were replaced five or six times and it often took multiple rolls of certain dates to find an example that I could accept. The best examples of my own discerning tastes and this sort of persistence are found within the business strike clad issues and more common date silvers. These were almost entirely, obtained raw, and many took years and years of in-hand examination to make this album. I feel very strongly that I was able to acquire some truly phenomenal coins but definitely skipped a meal or two back then, for doing so. This was not because I paid a premium, it’s because a dollar and some change was often… all I had to my name.

I’d like to thank so many of the old school dealers who allowed me to sift through their inventory. Two of them stand out the most. The first was a local B&M that had multiple BU and Proof rolls of clad quarters on hand. He used to let me cherrypick through them and never charged me more than the lowest of prices. I picked up exceptional business strike coins here for under a dollar and proof’s were not much more. The second was an old school dealer I visited with at a show who actually still possessed the remainder of an old BU dealer roll of a 1940’s semi key. This experience not only allowed me to choose the best example, but it allowed me to realize why a collector should never settle. I had been actively searching for this particular date and mintmark for over a year. Like most I’ve encountered, this dealer was a true gentleman. Despite our sixty year age difference, we hit it off immediately when I described to him what I was attempting to accomplish. His own son once embarked on this same journey.

Excluding all of the duplicates, rolls, un-cracked slabs, replacements, etc… my records suggest the set cost me $10,811.09 to assemble. That may sound insane to some of you (for a bunch of quarters), but I could never put a price on what I’ve taken away from this. Much of that is because of some of you.

Well, here it is Coin Talk. Please enjoy! I plan to add more photos from time to time.

- WashQuartJesse

 

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That is a fantastic collection and a true labor of love. Congratulations are certainly in order.

 

congrats on the completion of this awesome set. I wish these pics were bigger so we could see the coins in closer detail. I like seeing the toned quarters. so what set will you collect next ?

 

Congrats! I'm still working on my set and nowhere near done.

 

Congratulations!

 

That is quite an accomplishment. Good for you! I’ve always thought of putting together a set of these but there’s no doubt in my mind that they’d be nowhere near as nice as yours.

 

That is one tremendous accomplishment!

 

What are you going to do for an encore? (Just kidding)

 

I would like to spend some time looking at your awesome collection First hand.
It truely amazes me, the amount of time and dedication you have put forth to
accomplish your goal. And it is a bummer that I can only hit this "like" button
once. If I could I would hit it 212 times.

 

Congrats! washington quarters second thing in my to do list after i complete my jefferson nickels.

 

Great post, congrats!

Do you know what's next for you?

 

I can't imagine all the time and effort you put into your collection. Looks great!



Ummm, now what are you going to do with all of the duplicates you have? If you need someone to take them off your hands...

 

A truly remarkable accomplishment and done for all the right reasons. You are a bona-fide numismatist. Congratulations!

 

I'd like to enlarge and see the coins. Clicking on them takes me to photo bucket
where they are the same size. I can click control/+ to enlarge the page but it's not a great way to do it and see the coins.

 

Thanks everyone! I apologize for the lack of individual pics. Over the years, I’ve taken photographs of each of these coins under different lighting conditions. Every time I try to put together a final digital album display, it doesn’t quite meet my expectations. Now that the album is complete, I can certainly work on this and try to post larger pics of individual coins.

Randy, some day I’d like to attend shows and set up a table just so I can share this album (and hopefully other coins) with others. That would be very satisfying.

I’m undecided as to what I will move on to. Having been so focused for so long, it’s a breath of fresh air to be “free” from any of this! I’ve been doing some reading and just general viewing of many different coins and series. I’ve considered a slabbed type set which would offer me lifelong variety and some structure. I’ve also considered doing something with gold coinage. Really, there’s not much I’d be opposed too. I just need to choose wisely due to my obsessive nature! One option I am really considering is assembling something that ties into my genealogy. This would expose me to so much history which I could tie in with numismatics. In just a couple of days, I was able to trace my paternal line a very long way back and am uniquely fortunate to have discovered an abundance of historical records. So much to consider.

Here are some of the earlier keys included in this album. All of them have been cracked out save for the 32-D.

1932-D PCGS MS64: Of all the coins in this series, I believe this is by far, the most over-graded by the TPGs. This coin somehow managed to get upgraded to a 64 and is actually featured on the PCGS grading examples section, as a 63. It has a distracting cheek hit but the pleasantness of the rest of the coin must have swayed somebody who was having a very good day. It was very difficult to locate a graded 32-D in 64 that truly met the technical requirements of that grade. This one did not, but it’s an attractive OS/MS example IMHO. I also feel that MS 32-D’s are trading for a fraction of their potential value given the lack of availability and demand I observed (not that I’m remotely a coin investor).





1932-S PCGS MS64 CAC:







1936-D PCGS MS66:





1936 PROOF PCGS PF65:

 

Good post

 

Fantastic set! Well done!!!

 

BRAVO!!

 

Wowser !!!!

 

Wow!! Great set.

The '32-D and S even look undergraded.