My First Quarter Box

I recently picked up my first box of quarters to try to catch up with the ATB series (was able to fill a few holes) and to put together a circulation set of the eagle reverse Washington quarters. I didn't find anything too special, but I was not disappointed since I am very close to getting caught up with the ATBs.

While I was at it, I figured I would compile the sample populations of each issue of the eagle reverse quarters (every business strike date/mm combination from 1965 to 1998) out of curiosity. About half of the box (932 quarters) was from this period.

Here's a plot of the number found versus mintage for each issue, with an expected trend:



Next is a plot of fractional recovery of original mintage for each issue, versus the year of mintage. I was curious as to the strength of extinction from circulation of this series, since the now 50 year old 1965 run still seems to be going strong. From this sampling, a subtle trend can be seen indicating the removal of coins from circulation but it is not as strong as I was expecting. I would think a larger sample size would thresh this out better.



Just figured I'd share!