Yo, Karen --

Just about all modern government-issued coin sets are worth very little. Depending on the specifics of your 1973 set, it retails for about what you paid for it, between about $5 to $25 US dollars. A dealer who would buy it from you and sell it to someone else would pay about half of the retail value.

Your set, however, being dated 1973, carries a faint possibility of being worth hundreds of dollars. Look at the picture of the two quarters. There are very slight variations between them. These variations are somewhat noticeable in the Queen's hair. The hair on the low-value (small bust) piece shows more detail than the hair on the high-value (large bust) piece. If you have a set with a large bust quarter, it is worth between $100 and $300, maybe more.

Now if you are a dedicated collector who enjoys die varieties, it is time to get our your magnifying glass. A steady hand can count the small beads or denticles around the outside of the coin. The valuable large bust has 132 denticles. The non-valuable small bust has 120.



Thanks to mbird over at CoinTalk who gave us the idea for the 'count the dots' analysis. It works like a charm.