NEWS: Flawed Wisconsin Quarters Found

You might want to check any newly minted Wisconsin state quarters that you have very carefully, especially if you live in Tucson or San Antonio. Some Wisconsin quarters minted last year could be worth considerably more than 25 cents -- if there is an extra leaf or a flaw that looks like a leaf on the cornstalk pictured on the tail side of the quarter, that is. Depending on the condition of the coin, it could be worth $500 to $600.



Then the conspiracy theories began. Some coin collectors think the extra leaves are too plain, too definite almost as if this was done on purpose by a member of the US Mint.

Others think the flaw may just have been something that landed on one set of dies. No one knows at this time, but be rest assured the US mint is looking into the matter.


[edit on 8-2-2005 by Banshee]

Five minutes ago I thought I was a genius. I'm George Dubya's missing twin compared to whoever would have had an idea like this.
You mean to tell me that a small and possibly intentional addition to a new coin made it jump 2000 times in value?
I've got an idea- find out who at the mint asked to recieve their entire paycheck in quarters and arrest him!

This could be up there with the thousand-dollar hammer and toilet seat in terms of conspiracy fund-raising lore. Think about it- you could put an error into a coin, all but corner the market on that coin, and make probably hundreds of thousands of dollars on it over the course of a year or two if you put a bit of planning into it. That might sound really stupid but we're talking about government funding with absolutely no paper trail or oversight- that would be worth a lot to an intelligence or other non-sanctioned government entity.

I often thought about it when I was a printer....kind of wished I was working for the government printing their stamps, and well, mix up the wrong batch of ink, or accidentally insert a few sheets upside down, and well, you got yourself a sheet of stamps, with purple trees on it, or a car going upside down. Then well, just slip a few of the misprinted sheets out when they are done being printed take them home praying that they don't notice the few that were left in , and well, hold onto them, and well, your great-grandchildren might have something with alot of value!!
Or course, I've never seen the inside of the place where they print the stamps to just know how difficult all this would be, and there would still be the problem of cutting the stamps, but, well, I could probably find a way.....just let me in the door.
As it is, I've go a few advertisements for some popular products that have some really interesting errors on them....cars without wheels, ect. I am holding onto them, just in case.....never know!

For those interested I have managed to find pictures of the coins then made up a web page and put them on them on my website. You can find them here.

Once I saw the pictures I know it left some doubt in my mind if something like this was a mechanical error.

Wisconsin Quarters

[edit on 2/8/2005 by shots]

[edit on 2/8/2005 by shots]

It doesn't look flawed at all. It looks nice and clean and perfect. Looks like somebody decided to take liberties with the castings.
The only way I can see this being an innocent mistake is if this represents an extremely small and ridiculous change to the cast which for some reason was not successfully implemented everywhere.

Somebody get one of those coins and go to work on it with a hydrolic press! Remember how when you fold a new 20 dollar bill into a paper airplane you get an image of the twin towers burning?