Check your quarters. If you have the Wisconsin state quarter it could be worth as much as $600, a whopping 239,900 percent more than the face value, if it has an extra leaf (or a flaw that looks like a leaf) on the cornstalk pictured on the tail side of the coin, reports the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal.
A rare variation in a coin is something that will drive up the value and the price coin collectors will pay. Two months after the flaw was discovered, Rick Show of Eagle Eye Rare Coins Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., sold three Wisconsin quarters for $1,099. The set included a normal quarter, one with an extra leaf pointing up, and one with a leaf marking pointed down. He says individual Wisconsin quarters with the extra leaf sell for $500 to $600 depending on the condition.
The market is expected to be huge for these Wisconsin quarters since none of the previous 29 state quarters were found to have any quirks or variations.
The extra markings were first noticed in Tucson in December, and so far all the flawed coins have been found in Tucson and San Antonio, Texas. It's not clear if the markings were put there intentionally or if a gouge or foreign object in the die caused the variation.
The U.S. Mint is investigating the markings, which occur only on coins that were minted in Denver. "Throughout history, there have been some instances of variations--very, very rare instances," U.S. Mint spokesman Mike White told the Sentinel Journal. "If there is any kind of situation like this, we just take a very close look at the process and all the different steps." Coin collectors think the variations were intentional since they are too plain and too definite.
A rare variation in a coin is something that will drive up the value and the price coin collectors will pay. Two months after the flaw was discovered, Rick Show of Eagle Eye Rare Coins Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., sold three Wisconsin quarters for $1,099. The set included a normal quarter, one with an extra leaf pointing up, and one with a leaf marking pointed down. He says individual Wisconsin quarters with the extra leaf sell for $500 to $600 depending on the condition.
The market is expected to be huge for these Wisconsin quarters since none of the previous 29 state quarters were found to have any quirks or variations.
The extra markings were first noticed in Tucson in December, and so far all the flawed coins have been found in Tucson and San Antonio, Texas. It's not clear if the markings were put there intentionally or if a gouge or foreign object in the die caused the variation.
The U.S. Mint is investigating the markings, which occur only on coins that were minted in Denver. "Throughout history, there have been some instances of variations--very, very rare instances," U.S. Mint spokesman Mike White told the Sentinel Journal. "If there is any kind of situation like this, we just take a very close look at the process and all the different steps." Coin collectors think the variations were intentional since they are too plain and too definite.
