Here is a quarter I have had since 1998. Been curious but no solid answers from my own mind. I'd love your opinions. It is smooth no bumps or bubbles (even though grainy pics show some) weight: 2.0 grams every detail is there just "flat". what do you think? copper core with no clad? 1974 cent weighs 3.11 grams so I know it's not a cent planchet. what's your opinion? Paddy98 wade right in there too. I can take more close up pics if needed
I entertained that thought also and thought the "copper core" of quarters have to be a certain weight to maintain the over all weight of the end result of the quarter and the clad coating isn't that thick. I'll let the others play with the thought too. I have for years with this coin.
look, I know an acid treated coin when I see it and that edge isn't it. if it was done by someone or the environment, they went way out of their way on it. could this have been in the ground at some point though? Yes. but this isn't what we'd see completely. the pictures leave much to be desired. better pictures of obverse, reverse, and closer pictures of the edge, a couple of them from around the coin edge, looking for tampering. Also check the scale, it needs to do hundreths of a gram or even more exact and be calibrated. if it rounds to 10ths or half grams, who knows what the actual weight is. 2g could be 2.4g or 1.6g or something like that. It could be a split planchet before the strike happened. it could be a quarter struck on dime stock which exists for 1974. Not saying it is, but that edge doesn't appear to have the eaten out look of a coin that was corroded away, the copper corrodes faster than the nickel. A quarter on a dime metal stock, I'll save you the math but, X = 4.16 grams, the expected weight of a copper-nickel clad dime stock quarter. The weight of the actual coin may deviate up to 0.15 gram from the expected weight. Deviations greater than 0.2 gram in either direction probably mean you’ve got a rolled-thin error or split planchet, instead of a wrong stock error. And the possibility exists, some crafty chemist that really knows his acids shrank down the quarter evenly without eating up the copper core first, I don't know how someone would achieve it though, but I'm skeptical of that by it's appearance in these initial photos. It's the easy answer, but it doesn't mean it's the right answer. also seems wrong in that the copper core is a lot of the weight and it's gone from 5.67g to 2.0g, for a weight this low I'd expect the copper to be completely gone. if it were struck on a cent or a dime planchet, all details couldn't be present, so this leaves a split planchet before the strike, a seriously rolled thin planchet, or a quarter sized planchet punched out from dime sheet. or someone tampering with a quarter with acids or something else to remove the nickel, but not the copper, possibly getting rid of the copper with a corrosive, then plating it to make it look like the copper is there??? Even if it was missing both clad layers it should be around 3.67g. Where's I'm at with this info presented on this is either a split planchet before the strike and like 70%+ of the planchet is gone like the top part of a hamburger bun, or someone was really tampering with a quarter and went out of their way on it. to add back the copper edge maybe by plating. Even then the reeded edge shouldn't look like that at all, it should be gone. so they'd need to add that back also. 2.0g and the amount of detail on it, it is way too light to be anything else really. And the tampering, while being extreme for someone to have done, is the far more likely conclusion to draw. I don't think this happens by any environmental means.
Probably in the ground for some time. I've have found some coins that have gotten thin from the dirt being a acidic. Looks like someone cleaned it up good. All in all ...... PMD
As to what EXACTLY caused the damage to this quarter, it really doesn't matter. With numismatics errors, you must show evidence of why it is a genuine error including how and at what stage(s) the error occurred. Nothing in the planchet preparation or the striking process caused what is seen here. 100% post-Mint damage.
it is a VERY smooth quarter with no pits or bumps PMD it is labeled until I hear different. Thanks folks
If the planchet was this thin won’t the strike be much weaker, and many other coins (from the same planchet) would have been minted.
