While the United States Mint is often looked at as an institution made of money making money, there are times when even they are in need of cutting costs and being more efficient. Even the most successful of businesses often find themselves making hard decisions in order for the continuation of said flourishing business. So while we let that sink in, let us remind ourselves that when those decisions are made, sometimes events do occur unexpectedly. That is what happened for the next coin in our blog series featuring the 100 Greatest United States Modern Coins.
As authors Scott Schechter and Jeff Garrett walk us through this next entry of Whitman Publishing’s fourth edition publication, we find that in the absence of once-popular products, collectors and dealers will forge their way through any circumstance to get the coins in some other way. That is what happened back in the early 1980s.
#36 - 1983-P Washington Quarter
As mentioned before, the Mint finds themselves looking for ways to cut costs at times. One of these instances occurred in the early 1980s and one of the products in the middle was the Mint set. While the Mint set started being produced in 1947 and quickly became a popular way for collectors to get their hands on each example struck for circulation in an annual fashion, the sets fizzled out in 1982 when they were cut from the production schedule.
While the Mint sets would get cut, they would make a noticeable absence for collectors. This led to a number of private companies taking on the demand for the sets and for the years 1982 and 1983, there are privately issued Mint sets to be found. However, another source of 1982 and 1983 coins are the Souvenir sets that customers could receive after doing a tour of a Mint facility. The coins in these sets were primarily designed to meet the needs of the tours taken as they included circulation examples of the coins you would find in a Mint set but featured only the mint marks of a single mint. While these coins, in addition to the privately issued coin sets, were meeting the demand in absence of the U.S. Mint issued sets, their quality was below par in comparison. Only 15,000 Souvenir sets were made in Philadelphia and 20,000 in Denver in 1983 compared to U.S. Mint issued Mint Sets reaching 2.9 million in 1981.
In 1983, it was observed that Washington quarters were rarely saved when purchased in bags and rolls and the next best option in creating a set led collectors and dealers to circulated coins. In turn, albums needing the 1983 quarter dollar were often left blank as collectors were looking for high quality when it was rare to find. The 1983-P minted Washington quarter were often already worn and the production quality was lower than expected which many blamed on the Mint’s cost cutting techniques. Coins were found with weak detail and forms of abrasion that could only lead one to believe that tired dies were used to strike them. As the 1983-P quarter dollar is known to be scarce, they are worth much more than their face value.
As it was later found that the drop of production for the Mint sets matched in timing to the beginning of the revamped commemorative program that launched in 1982, complaints remained steadfast and the Mint would reverse their decision in 1984. Since then, a United States Mint Set has been produced every year.
While still remaining a top pick in the series, this coin has moved down seven spots since its debut in the first edition of the Whitman publication (#29).