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1970-S QUARTER STRUCK ON 1941 CANADA QUARTER
Rich Bottles forwarded this Yahoo video story headlined "This Quarter May Be Worth Much More Than You Think". His subject line
was "More poor numismatic reporting"
With tongue firmly in cheek I replied, "Well, it is quite rare - how many coins do you know with an obverse larger than the reverse?" The story is based on an eBay offering of a rare error, and it managed to go viral this week. Dave Bowers forwarded a version of the story found by Lee Bowers on MSN, and Dick Hanscom sent a version found at the Daily Mail. -Editor To read the complete article, see:
The internet mythbusting web site Snopes.com did a nice job covering this story, rightly declaring it a mixture of fact and fiction.
While the coin is a legitimate error and is indeed worth a considerable sum, the chances of anyone finding another in circulation are
nil. -Editor
CLAIM: A handful of 1970s quarters are worth a fortune, as they were minted on the back of a 1941 Canadian coin. MIXTURE WHAT'S TRUE: A 1970-s proof quarter struck on the back of a 1941 Canadian coin was listed on eBay for $35,000. WHAT'S FALSE: The coin did not enter circulation. EXAMPLE: [Collected via e-mail, June 2016] I read that old 1970 quarters are worth thousands now because they have a small 1941 number above the word Liberty on the back. Supposedly it's from Canadian quarters that were reused as American ones. ORIGIN:An article published on Woman's World on 31 May 2016 described a rare U.S. quarter from 1970 that was purportedly minted by accident on the back of a Canadian coin: We all have loose change sitting around, despite our promises to ourselves to roll 'em and bring 'em to the bank--or at least deposit them in one of those sorting machines. And while it's no surprise that many 200-year-old coins are worth more than the standard value, some 1970 quarters could be worth far more than 25 cents. How much more? How about a yearly salary's worth! The article quoted above is based on an eBay listing for a "1970-S Proof Washington Quarter Struck on 1941 Canada Quarter NGC PF 65." The coin is currently listed by Mike Byers, Inc. for USD$35,000. 
According to the eBay listing, Byers obtained this rare coin from a California state auction: This unique 1970-S Proof Quarter from the United States was over struck on a 1941 Quarter from Canada. This mint error was originally discovered in group of San Francisco Proof Errors that was auctioned by the State of California. There is a significant amount of detail on both sides showing the design of the Canadian Quarter. This is one of the most fascinating and intriguing proof mint errors ever discovered. While Byers has a long history of buying and selling mint error coins, many appeared skeptical about this eBay listing, largely because there seems to be no practical reason that a 1970 United States quarter would be minted in the same place as a 1941 Canada quarter. While third-party coin certification company Numismatic Guaranty Corporation couldn't provide the reason the coin was created, they did confirm to us that it was legitimate
Snopes included these nice composite photos from Mike Byers' eBay listing showing the undercoin. Ya gotta look close, but the design
is there. As always, you can click on the photo to see a larger version in our E-Sylum Flickr archive. Great error coin! -Editor
Lee Bowers noted: It's a "Fun reason for non-collectors to start checking their change for that "needle in the haystack". A great "coin collecting awareness" story for the general public. 
To read the complete Snopes article, see:
To read the complete MSN article, see: Rare batch of 1970 quarters worth much more than 25 cents (www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/rare-batch-of-1970-quarters-worth-much-more-than-25-cents/ar-AAgPLg3?li=BBnb7Kz) To read the complete Daily Mail article, see: Is your quarter worth $35,000? Rare 1970 proof coin containing faint trace of the year '1941' goes on sale... but you'll need to be very 'eagle'-eyed to spot minting error (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3633476/Is-quarter-worth-35-000-Rare-1970-proof-coin-containing-faint-trace-year-1941-goes-sale.html) To read the complete eBay description, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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