Expert: PAPAJACK - 3/27/2008

Question
I have a 2000 New Hampshire State quarter with no Mint mark. There is'nt any wear to the naked eye either. What do you think of that?

Answer
Hello Bill,                                        

Missing letters and weak strikes are usually caused by a filled die error.
Grease and debris commonly get caught in the recesses of the dies as they produce coins. When the dies close on the coin blank the portion of the die filled with this grease or debris won’t let the metal flow into it.

The defect although very common rarely repeats the misprint in exactly the same way on the next coin struck in the same die set. It is a random occurrence and happens in every mint coin run. There is no way of knowing how many are made since is not documented. Over all with the billions of coins made each year the number with this defect is small. The coins are not considered more valuable than any other since it is a random defect.

The price you may get for them over the face value depends on what an error collector may pay for the particular coin. It usually has very little added value Less than a dollar and only an interested Error-collector would seek it out.

Error collecting is a branch outside of coins collecting. There is no fixed pricing on these error coins published since each one would have to be seen to be evaluated.

I hope this information is helpful.

Feel free to ask another question about US Coins.

Good Luck

PapaJack