(Error?) 1967 clad Washington Quarter - real? value?

I have a 1967 Washington Quarter that is missing some of it's inner clad layers:

1. Weight: 4.9g; instead of 5.8g
2. Thickness: 1.52mm; instead of 1.67mm
3. Diameter: 23.49mm; instead of 24.14mm [because some of the reeded edges have fallen off - see pics]

See attached pics.

Does anyone know about this coin? Is it real? An error coin? Or what?

Any help appreciated. Thanks.
Tom

 

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Acid bath. It eats the copper quicker than the nickel, giving that appearance to the reeding.

 

The reeding also looks filed/sanded or removed somehow. PMD, no error, 25 cent value. Keep up the hunt.

 

+1

 

I appreciate the ideas on why the reeding might be gone. But those ideas would not explain:

1. While acid bath might be possible to remove small amount of metal reeding that is gone around 2/3 of circumference; it would NOT be able to remove Inner layers of copper & still leave all external nickel surfaces full & intact.
2. Thinness: in defining thickness earlier, it's not just something that is noticeable via a caliber, but is DISTINCTLY noticeable in touch & feel.
2. Weight: small amount of metal reeding that is gone around 2/3 of circumference while measurable & calculable, is minute & would not explain the DISTINCTLY noticeable lack of weight in touch & feel.

This is Much Different than a simple loss of reeding. This is a Distinct Weight & Thickness difference - which is what brought it to my attention in the 1st place.

So still looking to other ideas from folks.

Thanks!

 

Well, you just might be looking a long time for another answer. The coin you show does look like it's been through some acid or something, and clad quarters do tend to look like the one you have due to acid.

The three posters that answered you or chimed in to agree actually are not trying to pull your leg or lead you astray.

Good luck, though!

 

It is a heavily damaged coin and I know of no other coin that has left, or could have left, the mint in anywhere near that condition. I wish I could say it was an error.

 

What if it left the mint having been created on a thinner or defective blank [missing in the copper center], but after 55 years of use, some of the reeding has fallen off because it was defective?

I'm not giving up this easily. Thanks.

 

Doubtful the answer was given above PMD. Someone may have used some sandpaper or something similar on the edge reeding to allow the acid bath to work into the coin faster which would explain the reeding issue.

 

I understand what you & others are saying about reeding issue. But that is the Least Important & most Minimal Issue of the 3 issues this coin has.

If we set that minor issue aside, the Most Important issues are the Thinness of the actual coin (by 10%) & the Lighter Weight by (15%) in comparison to a similarly worn clad quarter of same year. These 2 areas are distinctly obvious. Yet the obverse & reverse are in VF to VF+ condition. [Not great pics; they did not do the obverse justice & I couldn't upload reverse because of limit of 5 pics.]

Still causes me to believe planchet was originally thinner which causes both affects in thinness & weight issues.

 

Assuming it is a thin planchet, what are you hoping for?

 

I too really want to know if this is some kind of error, reason being I found a 1981D that looks almost the same photos below:

 

I agree with the acid bath. When I was in school (back in the 70's) we abused all kinds of coins in shop class or in lab. I'm not surprised that so many of these show up.

 

Remember, acid etching tends to preserve and even enhance detail -- that's why we have "acid dated" Buffalo nickels.

Sure, nickel is more reactive than copper. But things get complex when you're dealing with alloys, and metals react differently to different acids (look up "passivation").

It's an acid-etched coin.

 

These are all the points that point towards acid bath.
1. It eats copper quicker to the copper core appears to recede into the coin. And the nickel layers aren't intact. They show acid damage.
2. It's thin because it's had a bath. Acid eats away uniformly at the coin, and will reduce size in all directions while leaving the details fairly intact.
3. Again, with metal gone, it'd weigh less.

 

I continue to hear that most of you want to stay convinced in your original analysis of it going thru an acid bath & that is the cause of ALL it's issues. But while that might explain some of the issues w/the reeding & edging, it does NOT explain the uniform thinness issue from any scientific point of view that I can determine.

So for the sake of moving forward, let's agree that it may have been in an acid bath at some time & that may have caused some of the observations viewed on the edging of this coin.

But if the thinness was just around the edging where the acid could seep into the edges where reeding is missing, then ONLY an acid bath would be a reasonable hypothesis. But since the thickness of the coin is Completely Uniform across Every angle, location & surface across the coin; And since the obverse & reverse have reasonable depth, height & view; Including from the center of the coin, then it still Looks like the original planchet was defective.

 

It's apparent that no one is going to change your mind so I don't think anyone will continue to try and do so. If your sure of your hypothesis send your coin into TPG and see what they say about it. Although, even if it was a thinner planchet as you hypothesize the coin is so damaged that it doesn't matter at this point because it wouldn't be worth more than a 25 cents anyways.

 

Yup, you're right. I was hoping that someone might bring some other ideas to the table. So thanks anyways.

 

Obviously you should submit this coin to a grading service for authentication and evaluation. This should settle your mind.

 

Ok, thanks!