Lots of old quarters in circulation now that look like in brand new condition

Yes. Those quarters are in remarkable condition and must have been released in recent times.

But to put this in perspective back in 1964 most 1932 quarters were very heavily worn with Good being typical and AG quite common. Once in a long while even a Fair would show up. But it was not in the least unusual to find an AU. XF's were not very difficult. This happened because the mint did not rotate their coin stocks in those days and coins could sit in storage, lost in the back of the vault, for decades. In 1972 the FED and mint began rotating their stocks so old high grade coins are quite atypical.

I have to imagine the scarce and valuable '67 was released because it's a dog. Buyers want chBU so these tend to get weeded out and spent. Perhaps the increase in the incidence of high grades is reflective of more interest in this now long obsolete series. Ike dollar rolls are now wholesaling at $60 per roll!!! These are limitedly available and do change hands at this price. Prices for rolls of clad quarters are essentially moot because there are no rolls of clad quarters, no market for clad quarters, and they very rarely change hands.

 

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It looks like there is a S mint mark on the 1984 and the bicentennial quarters. I would say those are proof coins as those two look frosted

 

Definitely those two are proofs that for some reason were put into general circulation. Very sad and unfortunate that such beautiful coins would end up like that. The 1984 has some serious gashes in the neck and cheap areas, but the 1976 is surprisingly in much better condition, considering being found in circulation.

 

Color me Guilty....
Over the last few years I've picked up a number of delinquent SDB lots consisting of change.
4000 bicentennial quarters and halfs along with lots of state quarters in Minty condition.

I get them mostly at face value so they get turned back into the wild.

 

Yes.

A lot of coins like this end up in the hands of dealers when the heirs bring them into the shop. Usually they are forced to buy them in a "all or nothing deal" and then they go into the till or hauled away to the banks. This is part of the reason that attrition on moderns has been so staggeringly high over the decades. A lot of moderns have no value or is so limited dealers don't want to deal with them.

It's not just that these coins are unloved it's that there is actual disdain for them. This leaves a large part of the total supply in the hands of beginners and less sophisticated collectors so even collections of moderns tend to have a high attrition rate. To put this in perspective everyone "knows" BU Ikes are distressingly common and there's no demand for them anyway but what people don't realize is that the wholesale price of a BU roll of common date Ikes has crept up $60 in the last couple years. Even though there is no demand the supply is even thinner.

Still Ike attrition is astronomical. The coins are suffering from improper storage (they must be removed from mint sets) and the tendency to be unceremoniously hauled off to the bank when the owner passes on. While far more common Morgans sit safely in safety deposit boxes and vaults, Ikes are exposed to the same forces that destroy everything made by man over time. Meanwhile moderns that are even scarcer than Ikes and have higher attrition are selling for nothing at wholesale because there is no market at all.

Obviously there are still "lots" of BU bicentennial quarters and we can tell because it's still common to see a BU in circulation. I hardly go a year without seeing one or two. The irony is these have a little stronger wholesale price since there is more demand for them.

 

I've had quarters I've hoarded/stored since the early 1970s.
Sooner or later .... my kids will probably spend 'em.

 

Back in the 80's I had a friend who was roughly 10 years older then me. He had one of those glass 5 gallon water jugs with about three inches of quarters at the bottom of it. 20 years later, I ran into him and went over to his home and that same jug was there, but this time was all the way past the top. There were about 20 or so quarters balancing in a mound up past the lip of the jug. You can't even budge that jug of quarters. I'm guessing it must weigh a few hundred pounds. He says he won't try and move it until he decides the jug will have to be busted open. He doesn't have any idea how many quarters are in there, but one thing he's sure of, nothing is older than 1965.

So there are tons of people hoarding coins such as quarters. Even my own mother used to hoard bicentennial quarters for something like 10 years. She ended up realizing they wouldn't be worth more than face value, at least during her lifetime, so she put them in paper quarter rollers over a period of a few months, brought them to the bank to exchange them for paper currency, and then went out and bought a new car. She claims she had roughly 16 one gallon coffee cans of them in her closet by the time she stopped collecting them. She told me she would spend a few hours a day in the evenings rolling them. After each time, she said her finger tips were all black from the coinage.

 

About 1 quarter per roll now days has what I call a "collectible" eagle reverse quarter. By this I mean the coin is not a cull or otherwise ugly. It also presumes it is not in lower than VG- condition. Most of these "collectible" quarters are common date and in only about VF condition.

Most hoards of quarters like this one also are tapped on a regular basis because the owner needs a little extra cash or just some coins for tolls. As a rule there are almost no quarters that have sat out of circulation for more than ten years. People don't have piggy banks any longer and coins tend to get picked up and spent (or redeemed). If he had started this jar in 1982 and never taken a coin out there would be a few BU '82-P's and a dozen nice AU's. But I'd lay odds that there are no BU's and only a very few AU's. It almost always works this way and that's why high grade old quarters stand out so much and get attention. Even in the early '80's people would question me when I spent a few old quarters in BU.

People imagine a nice pristine chBU 1971 quarter can easily be found but it's just imagination. There are no rolls and mint set coins are tarnished. Quarters from the '80 aren't really any easier but at least the mint sets aren't tarnished (yet).

Generally one receives only 10 or 12 BU coins per year in change. Even if your friend never tapped his water jug and didn't move it around excessively we'd only be talking some 400 coins and all later dates. All you have to do to know I'm right is gather up a couple hundred quarters from the mid-'80's and separate them by grade. Because the FED rotates their stock the coins will lay in a narrow range of grade and they'll mostly all be ugly.

 

a few years ago my dad tried to move one of his jugs. It broke. All the change is in old coffee cans now.

 

Early this year I helped a friend liquidate his fathers collection. Among the collector coins he owned, he also had hundreds of rolls of modern uncirculated quarters and nickels. They all ended up at the bank to be released back into the Wild. Chris and Prez are right. Old collectors with their own preferences pass on and a lot of their hoard goes back to work.

 

Any '67 quarter rolls are worth $155 and '83 are $550 wholesale.