August 2010 Archives

My wife found a 1976P bicentennial in her change at the snack hut at the zoo.

We had taken the day off to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. We saw some skilligimink cotton candy, some pink flamingos, some giraffes and generally had a good time.

Mondays are "free" days for residents of Cuyahoga County (meaning that we pay via our various taxes).

Don't tell anyone, but we were really there to squash some pennies for the children's collections.

Really.

The bicentennial quarter, the lions, tigers, bears and oh my, the koalas, flamingos, kangaroos and butterflies were all bonuses.

What's nicer than finding a bicentennial quarter in a quarter roll?

Finding a second one in the second roll!

Although we didn't find any silver quarters or 2009 District of Columbia and United States Territories quarters, we did find this nice bicentennial Denver mint quarter.

And since that's what we're looking for right now, that's what we needed and it joins the others.

Be sure to check out the new histogram and the map!

My oldest son collects quarters and we occasionally will head down to the bank to get a roll or two to see what he can find.

At best, we'll find a silver one and add that to his collection of pre-1965 quarters.

Sometimes he'll find a state quarter that he needs or a nicer one that he can upgrade to.

At worst, I end up with a whole mess of quarters that I use for paying to have the trash taken out (25 cents a bag, with contractor bags going for 50 cents).

So it's kind of like gambling, only at the end, you still have the vast majority of your initial outlay. And anything that you might remove from the roll is almost certainly worth more than 25 cents. So really, it's a nice gamble with the odds greatly in my favor.

This one we found peeking out of a plastic quarter roll. It doesn't get much easier than that!

Be sure to check out the new histogram and the map!