The US Mint reports that 140,000,000 collect the State Quarter series in America, and many of these collectors often wonder if they are worth anything or how much they will be worth in the future. It’s a legitimate line of thought considering the millions upon millions of State Quarters the mint churns out every year. However, there are some ways to consider that could help State Quarter collectors get a return on their investment.

Below I highlight 3 different ways to collect the highly sought after quarters, so the chance for a return on your investment should be greater than just putting a few back out of your pocket change.

1. Buy rolls for face value from your local bank, put them away, and don’t ever touch them again until you ready to sale them. You will get these rolls for face value, and they will be unsearched, and unsearched rolls sale for more of a premium than searched rolls. Just check ebay for unsearched State Quarters rolls to see what I mean.
It’s a win-win situation for the collector because you can always get your money back without a loss, when needed, or wait a few years and make a little return for your “savings”. I just think of this as a savings that I can always tap into at a moment’s notice, or continue to add to it, and make more interest than banks allow me to earn if I just made regular deposits from my pay check.

2. Buy State Quarter Silver Proof Sets (red box) from the mint because these coins are silver, and have a substantially lower mintage than the business strikes quarters mentioned above. It’s usually a good idea to collect silver coins and/or the lowest mintage strikes of any series as they almost always allow for a break- even mark, and a good chance of a future return.

If a collector would have bought as many 1999 Silver Proof Sets they could afford, from the mint in 1999, look at the return they would be realizing today considering these proof sets now sale for $350 and up!

3. Read and learn as much about grading State Quarters, and modern coin grading in general, then buy rolls and bags of State Quarters from the mint and/or at your local bank, search these rolls for coins with the least amount of contact marks, and carefully handle them as you put them away in a safe place.
When you are confident that you grading skills have improved enough, then send a few of the coins off to a top tier grading company like PCGS or NGC and see how well you did.

You might first discover your skills lacking, but after a few submissions you will get the hang of the little coin grading nuances, and begin to amass a collection of high grade State Quarters that are valuable and much easier to sale for a premium.

It might prove to be a bit daunting and costly method at first, but before you ride this off as a “too tedious and expensive of a task”, consider this fact: PCGS reports values, for some State Quarters graded MS and Proof in the top two grades of 69 and 70, anywhere from hundreds of dollars and up into the thousands of dollars. It all depends on the population of each grade.

Many State Quarters dates and states have never been graded the perfect grade of 70, and the value of finding one would net the finder many thousands of dollars on a huge auction platform like Heritage Auctions.
*This method is the most difficult to master and can get expensive if you don’t learn grading, but many experienced collectors do make money using this method.

In conclusion, although no method of collecting can guarantee a return for your investment, these methods outlined above where written considering a few history lessons, and the study of coins values and why certain rolls and graded coins are most valuable.

Disclaimer: The author does not guarantee that any collector will earn any money from the methods in this article, and is not responsible for any monetary losses if you try them.

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