Am I holding a valuable coin or something fake?

Question

Today a man came up to me while I was at work and asked me if I had a quarter. I said I did have one and he gave me one he had in exchange for mine. He said he tried to use his quarter in the pay phone but the pay phone wouldn't take the quarter. I didn't think anything of it until I began to leave for
work. I was going to get a drink out of the vending machine so I grabbed the quarter to put it in the machine. Then I saw something that struck my eye. The Year on the quarter is 1950. I have never held a coin that old before so I felt I might be lucky. However on closer examination I also noticed that their was quite alot of fading on the silver of the coin, which is to be expected for a coin thats nearly 60 years old. But not only was it faded but I didn't even see the P or D that represents the mint it was printed on. The coin also feels heavier than a normal quarter. So putting all those facts together i want to know if this is something of value or if it is fake and i am out 0.25.

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Answer 1

You have a quarter made of .900 silver and .100 copper it should weigh 6.25 grams or close since you say it is worn. Coin machines today are not set up for them. A clad quarter 1965-2007 weighs 5.67 grams. The machine may have thought it weighed to much, like a few lead quarters I have seen over the years, that someone made. It is actually worth 7 to 8 times face value for it's silver. The P mint mark was not added to the quarter until 1980. The 1950 quarter had a mintage of 24,920,126 so it is not a scarce date. It will always have value due to it's silver content.