Companies attempt to sell “gold” quarters as great future coin investments, which they are not. Because the term “gold” generally coincides with “valuable” and “precious metal,” people believe that they should be worth a significant amount and purchase gold plated coins with that thought. The problem with these, however, is that, while they are gold plated, the gold plating is incredibly thin, only thin enough to give the appearance of gold. There is nothing wrong with owning gold-plated coins, with the most common being quarters, as long as you did not spend the overpriced prices for the coins. These are real quarters, plated by a third-party service, not the official US Mint. Because of that reason, many collectors even go as far as to claim these coins are damaged.��