America The Beautiful Circulating Coin Set Quality Issue

The sets are not truly sealed. They are easy to open, remove/replace coins, and close. Because of this, there is no reason it would have any premium value. Anyone could easily make a set like this.

I would send it back because you bought five quarters, not four with a duplicate.

I agree with jbuck. I would send it back and get the correct set.

That is the set I have.

I got the set directly from the mint. I doubt the mint switched the coin. Nothing looks odd about the set except the duplicate coin.

The circulating quarter set is fairly well sealed as it comes from the mint. That plastic in the above picture (my scan) is very heavy and heat sealed, unlike modern proof sets in the plastic lenses that aren't sealed at all, I think a switch would show for sure. So, an error set should be worth a little more than you paid for it but I doubt that it would be worth much more, perhaps not even enough to pay for shipping it to a buyer. I really wish the mint would put tamper evident seals on the lenses used on proof coins to prevent people from buying lots of sets and cherry picking PR70s and them returning the rejects to be sold to other collectors. This is part of why I always buy these sets when they first come out, so I know I am not getting returns.

Please feel free to use any images that I upload for any purpose that you choose. The tamper evident thing has bothered me for some time. I like being able to get the coins out easily and without damaging the packaging and I hated that I had to break the plastic to get coins out of 80s lenses because they were glued. I just wish that the fact I have opened the lens was obvious to all. A simple holographic sticker like the ones used on software and CDs/DVDs would do the trick.

You are probably correct. I could have sworn that my 1995 or 1996 set was the first that was easy to open, but it may have just been a weaker glue job. I will have to pull out my box of empty lenses and OGP material to be certain.

I do know for a fact that all three of my Prestige Proof Sets are not glued. They are basically the regular lenses (with different inserts) installed into a secondary plastic container. Both lenses and container are just snapped together.

It looks original to me. I am curious what this might bring if you sold it. However, the premium might not be worth the effort, as clairhardesty said earlier.