Susan Bs

With those figures, I'm surprised the 79 near date carries a premium

From Smalldollars.com



Have you ever found a quarter in circulation that was painted red, yellow, or some other color? Do you wonder why someone would take the time to color a coin? More likely than not it was painted that way by a bar owner or the owner of some other establishment that has a jukebox. When business is kind of slow, the proprietor of the bar will use several of his painted quarters to play music in the jukebox, hopefully livening things up and getting people in a party mood so they'll put their own coins in the jukebox. When the owner of the jukebox comes around to empty the coin box, he can then easily sort out the painted quarters and give them back to the bar owner.





A similar thing happened in the early 1990's with the Anthony Dollar. The owner of Hart's Coin Laundry in Chicago invested in Anthony Dollar slots for his machines. Using a dollar coin would be much easier than handling several quarters, however his customers kept mixing up the two denominations. The owner came up with the idea to use dykum on the Anthony Dollars. Dykum is an extremely durable dye used to color metal. Five hundred were dyed with dykum blue. The "blue dollars" made it easier for his customers, as well as himself, to visually seperate the dollars from the quarters.

One of the key members of the Coin Coalition, NAMA (National Automatic Merchandising Association), polled its members several times during the 1990's concerning ideas and attitudes towards the dollar coin. The owner of Hart's Coin Laundry sent several of the "Blue Anthonys" to NAMA, who then forwarded them to the Coin Coalition. The Coin Coalition used examples of the dykum blue dollars in their lobbying of Congress as additional support for one of the Coalition's goals, i.e. a new dollar coin of a different color. The rationale being that since dollar coins and quarters were easily confused, a different color would make it more likely the public would accept the dollar. Obviously, they didn't want a blue coin - they wanted a golden color coin. However, it did support their argument that people were more likely to use the dollar coin if they could visually tell the difference.

A similar experiment was tried in New York City with dykum red used on the Anthony Dollars. No further information is available on that experiment.



The information on this page is generously provided by Small Dollar researcher and enthusiast Phillip Barnhart.

Think I'll stick with the mint issue stuff. Have 7 in hand, 7 on the way.....just 4 more to go. Unfortunately, one will be a tad expensive....

mrritchie77,

That's a pretty impressive collection! It looks like you also did a stellar job being patient with prices!

You can get the '81-S fairly cheap.

Looking good! While SBA's are not the prettiest coins in my opinion, I think they are great starter collections as you can still get great looking coins for affordable prices compared to some other sets. Plus with only a few varieties it doesn't take a lifetime of commitment to finally finish the set.

Some of these in high grade go for crazy money though.. So cherpicking for this set is good right now

Although not the most attractive set, it was a fun, easy and for the most part not to expensive to assemble(in MS66 or lower) I have also tried to add two more SBA varieties, Breen# 5836 & 5846 of which I have the first, but have not come across the second yet. here's a link to it for those not knowing of it. Does anyone on here know of other known varieties?
http://coins.ha.com/itm/proof-susan...8041-61571.s

No, the third star to the left of 1981 is smaller than the rest of the other stars. Never heard the reason for it (partially filled die?) but it is smaller. Just making it fun to to hunt them down. I bought the 5836 back in the mid 90's, and have never come across the 5846, though I'm not aggressively looking for it, but do hope to come across it...