1990-P Quarter - Damaged Or...?

Somebody took out a LOT of pent up aggression on that poor quarter.

That poor quarter looks like it got dropped on a warehouse floor and then dragged around by a forklift. But I'm just guessing.

There's just something about it that looks like it got between metal and concrete.

But the 'bullet hole' on the forehead looks too small for forklift damage so....probably some other scenario.

Maybe it spent some time in a machine shop.

It does make me curious, but there is no way to ever no for sure.

Hey, that 5 baht is not worthless! A lot of us (myself included) collect foreigns. Put yours to the side, and after you've been here a bit, you may find a lively trading for them in the buy/sell/trade section.

My apologies on that baht :) I was going off of the face value compared to the US dollar, I don't think I will be able to set it aside to trade, I rather fancy it :)

The coin appears as though it might have been "repaired". A lot of damaged coin and various tokens, medals, and slugs are available for purchase by the pound. Many of these originate at banks where they are scrap buckets or auto recycling plants and anywhere that uses a lot of vending machines or that incinerates a lot of waste. One of the more common sources is municiple parking services. The really good stuff is usually taken out and what's left can be had for a song. After everything is separated out there will always be some damaged coins left. Most of these can be repaired well enough to work in vending machines with a few well placed hammer blows and a few hits with a file or grinder. This isn't my work but it appears to have been intentionally reshaped to pass in circulation. Until pretty recently culls of various types were accumulating in circulation but it appears the FED is finally removing all the misshpaen coinage. There are still a lot culls but not many that are bent, pounded, or otherwise out of their original shape.

It won't be long until they have to start removing some of the old quarters for being too thin. In 1999 they started using 1% thinner strip to forestall this date but some of the oldest quarters don't work in automatic equipment. So far the equipment can be adjusted but eventually adjusting the equipment to accept more coins will result in more slugs being used and they'll be forced to act.

We don't often think about coins circulating in vending machines but every coin makes hunsdreds of trips through these and other automatic equipment like coin counters. Any coin that won't pass through these freely will not actively circulate. Coins like the 1970-D quarter on dime stock with a mintage around 100,000 was completely removed from active circulation in less than a year because they didn't work. You still see them around in high grade because they accidently get back into circulation but they can't circulate before a collector or bank teller removes them. In 1970 a lot of people trying to buy a Coke from a machine would get so frustrated they throw them in the garbage. They were so common I didn't even save them initially but I did learn to always off someone a good quarter when he couldn't get something from a machine. Two times out of three I come out way ahead and the other time I'm out only 25c.