20th Anniversary WI Extra Leaf Low & High Quarters PCGS MS65

Special 20th Anniversary Special. 

Two-coin set. Wisconsin Extra Leaf Quarter set. 

High Leaf and Low Leaf 

PCGS MS65

From "The Lord Provides" collection.

These are from a special purchase of coins found by a Tucson family 20 years ago when these coins were first discovered.  They marketed some at the time on eBay as the seller "Lord Provides."  Recently they sold their remaining coins to us and we are now able to offer them to you. These are outstanding uncirculated coins graded MS65. 

Finally solved! How they were made!

These die errors, now known as an Added Design Element variety (ADE-001, ADE-002) have been long-discussed as to how they were created. It is now known, and can be conclusively proven, that these added elements were put on the dies by a Denver Mint employee who had access to the die manufacturing room. Numerous theories have been put forward: The first theory, put out by the Mint itself, soon after these were discovered, was that this was caused by a clashed die (A “come together” in Mint terms). This is obviously a misdirection by the Mint as there is no clear design element from an opposing die that could make these marks. A second theory is that dropped screw caused the circular marks. This is disproven by the fact that these added elements show clear signs of being added while the die was soft.

The proof is in in a close up images of the added design elements. Lets look first at the Low Leaf. It shows two raised elements above the cheese and to the left of the corn. Below the bottom element is a sloping depression in the field. This is the most important thing to make note of. A depression on the coin is a raised field on the die. This rise in the field can ONLY be caused when a die is in its softened state. When the field of the die was impacted by the circular object, likely a small nut driver, the soft metal was pushed up around it. This does not happen to hardened steel dies. As both alternate theories mentioned above involve a hardened die, they cannot be considered.

The High Leaf variety shows the same circular design element but in a different position. As there is only one impact made and it is lighter than the Low Leaf, it did not push up the soft metal on the die as much. An electron microscope measurement shows that there is actually some deformation in the field to the right of the design element. Again, the field could not deform like this after the die was hardened and put in the press.

Finally proven! How many were made!

According to the internal Mint investigation from June 21, 2005, the Extra Leaf dies were put into two of the presses on a Friday night shift. It was late November, 2004. A bank of five presses strike the quarters and they flow into a single huge hopper. The coins are loaded into a balistic bag and shipped to the rolling facility in Utah. Soon after the presses started the coins were checked and the Extra leaf coins were discovered by the pressman. He shut off the two presses and took the dies out and put them on the shelf of the press. He then went to lunch. 

Upon returning, he discovered the dies back in the presses and they were running again. He turned them off and told a supervisor. It is estimated that between 35,000 and 50,000 were struck while he was at lunch. These were comingled with regular coins and shipped out. The remaining coins after the second discovery was made were retrieved and destroyed. 

The initial investigation was made on February 21 and 24, 2005. At that time the Die Shop Chief; Quality Assurance Chief, Quality Assurance Supervisor, Die Setter and Shift Coordinator agreed that the error was not the cause of a "Come Together" or die clash.  However, someone who is blanked out on the report says that he was told by the die setter that these were caused by a "Come Together", but also said that he had not personally examined the dies.   

Today, 20 years later we can tally up the amount of coins graded by PCGS, NGC, ANACS and ICG to get a good idea of the number of coins found. My tally shows about 25,000 High Leaf and 30,000 Low leaf coins found in MS condition. This is the same overall rarity as the 1955 Doubled die cent and the 1937-D 3-legged Buffalo nickel. Although the average grade of those coins are not MS grades, but XF to AU. 

The 20th Anniversary of the discovery by Bob Ford.

It was December 11, 2004. 

It was the find of a lifetime! For 15 years, Bob Ford, a retired Highway Patrolman from Tucson, Arizona, had occupied his free time looking through his local bank's coin rolls. He regularly came up with unusual die cracks and other minor errors that he sold on ebay. He also would regularly go through the local dealers bulk silver and wheat cents looking for better dates. On December 11th, 2004, Bob went to his local bank and requested the current issues from the State-Quarter issue - Wisconsin. Tucson gets its coins from the Denver Mint, so all the coins Bob got were from that Mint. After checking though 4 rolls, Bob noticed that there were extra leafs on some of the coins. Very interesting to say the least! He went though the previously searched rolls and found a few more of the odd coins.  

Bob found two distinct varieties; both had extra leaves, or more properly "husks" off the lower left of the corn on the design. One has a single "leaf" pointing upward; the other has a wider "leaf" curling downward. With a few of these coins in hand, Bob took them to Rob Weiss of Old Pueblo Coin in Tucson. Rob and his employee, Ben Weinstein were impressed with the varieties and tried to get some information from the Mint as to their cause. The Mint was, it seems, as dumbfounded as everyone else. Ron Harrigal, Mint assistant for design, research and development said in a Mint statement; "We believe they are deep gouges in the coin blanks that did not fully coin out." Apparently they did not notice that the elements in question were raised, not sunk in the coin. The story was released to Coin World in the January 10th issue of Coin World, just as the nations dealers and collectors were descending on the 50th annual Florida United Numismatists (F.U.N.) Convention in Ft. Lauderdale.  

All the world finds out about the "Extra Leaf" quarters!

January, 2005

My involvement in this story began while I was vacationing in Florida with my family prior to the F.U.N show in Ft. Lauderdale. On the day the local paper announced the discovery, my employee called me in near exhaustion, "Rick, this is amazing. It's huge!" Having not seen the story, or the hoopla it was causing, I contained my excitement for the next day, when he would arrive in Florida with the coins. The next day, prior to set up I saw the coins, and was very impressed, to say the least. Working under the assumption that more were coming out in Tucson, we decided to sell the sets we had for $150, perhaps we could even pay our show expenses on these sales. 

The beginning of the show was a frenzy of activity. There were auctions to attend and deals to make. The coins sat in the case, attracting only a slight interest. Because of the timing of the story, no one at the show had heard of this variety yet. During a lull in the activity I took the sets around to show some of the the hobby's top numismatists, including Q. David Bowers, David Hall,of PCGS, Brian Siliman, of NGC, Mike Farone and Randy Campbell at ANACS, J.P. Martin from ICG as well as many others. The nearly universal impression was that these were fascinating "naked-eye" varieties which should excite all collectors. By the time I finished this one walk around the show were started getting lots of inquiries about the coins. The buzz was starting. Dave Bowers bought one set, then a second set. These became the first pieces graded by PCGS. David Hall called these varieties  "Absolutely fantastic naked-eye varieties". David Sundman from Littleton Coin bought a set as did a few of my customers who were aware of the building excitement. 

Back in Tucson, friend who was giving us reports on finds and the anticipated rarity of these coins called and said "These things have dried up! There are no more coming out!." We halted all sales and changed our strategy. Now we were buyers, big time! As soon as we arrived back in Tucson we made every effort to buy the sets at $100 per set. A few sets had begun to show up on ebay from some local people who found quantities, including "The Lord Provides." Prior to our arrival back in Tucson, they were getting bids of $65 or so for 3-piece sets. After bidding $100 for every set being offered, the market jumped. Although we bought only one of the sets on ebay, the owner contacted us and offered us his find of 200 pieces, which we promply bought. For the next few days the prices for sets escalated $25 each day. Within a week $250 was the standard price for 3-piece sets. A huge spike in demand happened on January 21st when David hall announced on the PCGS web site that "A major variety of the 2004 Wisconsin State Quarter has been discovered - the first major variety in the State Quarter series.

The mayhem starts!!

February, 2005

One of the sources of the quarters was a bank teller who, upon reading the Arizona Daily Star article went through every quarter roll in the bank. He found 200 sets intermixed in the Mint box labeled November 29th. None were found in earlier boxes or any later ones. No one is known to have found any solid rolls of either variety. All were found intermixed with normal coins with the Low Leaf variety slightly more common. We paid him $10,000 for his coins. 

Dave Bowers offered an opinion in an article in the February 17th edition of Coin World; “Two ordinary working dies that were employed at the Denver Mint were enhanced by someone in the employ of the Mint, somewhere along the line between die production and just before final use in the press. A highly skilled person expertly added a botanically correct leaf (some say “husk”) in the correct position on the design. This may have been as a whimsy, just to see what happened – sort of like tossing a bottle with a message into the ocean!” In The Official Price Guide of Minting Varieties and Errors, by Alan Herbert lists this type of variety as an Extra Design Element (II-A-30), which he defines as “A design element which was cut, punched or hubbed into the die so that it is extra, or more than normally required to complete the design, showing as an extra design element on the struck coin”

On February 8th, the Associated Press picked up the story and it was featured on the cover of just about every newspaper in the country. All the TV news organizations ran segments of the story as well. That day, the Wisconsin Extra Leaf varieties grew into a National phenomenon! People all over the country were searching through their coins. The AP story did not clearly state that the coins were only found on Denver Mint issues, so people in the east who get their coins from the Philadelphia Mint were also franticly looking although they had virtually no chance of finding the variety. Prices on ebay exploded! Auctions running at the time typically had 10,000 individual “hits” from people checking values. The more common Low Leaf uncertified singles jumped from $150 to over $350 overnight! The High Leaf uncertified singles jumped from $250 to over $800. This was well over the average certified prices the Tucson area dealers were selling them at. As a result, all the Tucson dealers pretty much sold out in a day. The buying frenzy was incredible!