You read it right! I found this “quarter” coin roll hunting. It weighs 5.613g, and looks like the metal composition might be similar to that of a regular quarter. The photos show it next to a genuine 1978 for comparison. Perhaps the intention is to pass it off in a vending machine? With current metal prices, this would be a 300% profit on the ~$0.06 worth of metal. This coin is a great example of even when a coin is super common, there’s still someone out there who is willing to make a counterfeit. Anyone ever seen a modern counterfeit coin?
Henning did a better job. This guy would not have gotten any where in the 19th century when people paid more attention to their coins. The “1978” date looks like something a kindergartner would draw.
Thanks for sharing! I would think these are made more for the thrill of seeing if one can rather than for the profit. Yes, there is quite a margin on the metal value, but the time and effort seem hardly worth it, not only to make but to spend. I would think most machines would reject them. Making them in enough bulk to be worth anything would bring the counterfeiter more attention than he or she would really like from the government unless they were scattered over a wide area of the country, again, a major costly effort.
Its entirely possible that some of these were made for a game, or a childrens toy, and were never intended to be convincing fakes.
I would have thought that too, but I have picked up what I thought were coins on the ground only to find they are “play money”…. They always have a dead giveaway emblazoned somewhere on the piece…. I honestly believe these are counterfeits and for the life of me I cannot imagine why anyone would put son much effort into a twenty-five cent ill gotten gain.
Here is my counterfeit quarter. (Coin Star find) As for why the quarters are counterfeited. Let's say they are made in North Korea or China for 2 cents apiece, and they make millions of them. It can add up for an enterprising home mint.
Perhaps the profit lies in the mint's mutilated coin program. While this article seems to exonerate the recycling industry in China, it wouldn't surprise me that it happened. Doesn't explain how the examples posted ended up in private hands though. But to run around spending small numbers of quarters seems like more trouble that it's worth, when you could dump them en masse into a bin of "damaged coins" instead. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xw4e5j/coin-recycling-damaged-mint-china-fraud
