The year 2008 is less than a week away from us now and I'm excited. Many of you gamers in the USA are already familiar with the "state quarters", yes, I collect coins. Well the United States of America started these special "state-themed quarters" in 1999 and they will end with them in 2008, the last set of these special quarters will be availible in common currency in just a few days, because 2008 is nearly upon us. Now you are probably veyr familiar with the fact that we have 50 states, but there are indeed 100 different quarters. How can this be? Let me explain: In pennies there are usually 3 different types of each penny, or that was the case from 1911-1974 with the exceptions of 1921-1923, 1932-1934, and 1956-1967. These 3 different versions were distinguished from each other by a very small marking on them. The regular pennies would have no markings whatsoever on them that represented anything than your average penny, these would be the pennies minted in Philidelphia, these were very common. The pennies with a very small D under the year date would be a bit rarer pennies, these pennies were minted in Denver. Lastly, the rarest of the 3 pennies were the ones with a small S under the year date, these pennies were minted in San Francisco (I'm pretty sure). From 1975-present, there have been no S minted coins of any kind.

I'm going on about this because that is why there are 2 different versions of the quarters, they have the P and the D versions of each "state-themed quarter". Thus I am collecting both versions. As if you read the above, you would know that the D version is rarer than the P version thus it is more difficult to find. So far, concerning my quarter collection I have all but 1 (the one I am missing is the D version of Maine) of the quarters from the 1999-2003 collection (50% of the "state-themed quarter" collection. However, of the 2004-2008 collection, I am missing 22 different quarters (of which all the ones that have been released I am only missing the some of the D versions). This is super exciting for me as 2008 is just around the bend and I only have 24% of the "state-themed quarters" left to find and add to my collection, thus making it complete once I get them all. I have not searched coin stores for these coins, or paid special fees for them, I have merely pulled them out from circulation. As of now, each "state-themed quarter" is valued at 200% of what it is worth to the average American (that means if I were to take one of my quarters to a coin shop, I could get an easy 50 cents of each one). Once I have my complete collection it will of course be worth more than that. I will not sell it immediately for an instant profit, but instead my plans are to keep them preserved in near mint condition for my future children, thus when it comes time for them to decide what to do with them, they will have easily most likely quadrupled in total value from the original value and they can decide to either keep them for greater value or sell them instantly. My penny collection is for myself though .

Your thoughts on this topic please?