A suspicious quarter these days might be one with a funny soapy feel. Probably 75% of all workers in retail don't know that quarters used to be made of silver and how that feels in hand. I wonder if someone took a 90% silver proof of recent manufacture and wore it down a bit so it didn't shine, how many people would recognize what it was and how many would think it 'suspicious'?
In an idle excuse for pedantry and time-wasting I guess I'd challenge the "75%". The last silver 25c was issued in 1964. After the silver
price peaks of 1974 and 1980 effectively nothing would have been left in circulation. I recall spending a summer in the US in 1984 and (already very interested in coins and an avid change-checker) never seeing a single silver coin in all that time. So we can presume that a retail worker from 1980 (if not from 1974) would never have cause to see a silver coin. What proportion of retail workers have been more than 32 years in the job, and even if they
had, what proportion of that tiny number would recall how a silver quarter feels in the hand? So I guess I'd assume 99% or thereabouts would not know how silver feels in the hand.
As to the proportion that know quarters used to be made of silver, my armchair stats differ. Ask a non-numismatist today what coins are made of and he might well say "silver and copper", and then pause to think on the question, and perhaps correct it to "well, probably not sterling silver". An amazingly high proportion of people
still think coins are made, at least in
part, of silver, possibly because
nickel is a pretty
rare metal in normal conversation. They would have even less idea that the "copper" coins are in fact steel.
But back to Doug's real point: would a retail worker know what a suspicious coin should feel like? Overwhelming evidence in the UK says no. Retail workers cannot distinguish the worst
cast fake from a newly struck pound coin even when you point it out (and I have). But apparently they have better luck challenging a Thai 10 Baht coin when offered for a 2
euro piece, and I know that the
rare and enigmatic island currencies (Falklands, Guernsey etc) do sometimes
merit a second and third glance (and so long as the Queen's
head is on it, are accepted).
So I would guess that the police were called simply due to someone not recognising a State Quarter design. But you would have thought (Queen's
head analogy) that Washington's
head would have reassured.
I love the small dollar coins in the US - a chance to use coins as real
money rather than as discards for tips (I'm even ashamed to leave coins as tips in the US for fear of looking mean and on trips there generally
hoard all coins received and leave them as a pile for my chambermaid when I checkout - as well as the usual paper tip - pretending somehow that I forgot them). When in
New York I always buy my metro card using a machine just in order to get a golden cascade of dollar coins that I can use as "real" tips. Because that's what such coins are ideally suited for.