Many of my readers watch their change. I do, too.

The day before yesterday in the course of my daily routine I received five quarters in my change. I took a look at them. What caught my eye were two of them. One is a 1982-P. The other is a 1983-P. Both of these coins tell a story of what might have been.

Their mintages don’t tell the full story. The 1982-P has a mintage of 500,931,000. The 1983-P has a mintage of 673,535,000. Both are indicative of common coins.

The two coins in my possession definitely are common. The 1982-P is better than the 1983-P. It probably grades AU-50. The 1983-P spent some time in a casino. The edge is nearly smooth as the reeds were worn away in the slot machines and coin counters.

I wouldn’t want to grade it because there are so many hairlines and contact marks that the surface is anything but original or pleasing to look at.

But what if I had saved a roll of each of these back when they were new issues? The Coin Market price guide says the uncirculated 1983-P roll of 40 is $1,500, or $37.50 for each coin. The 1982-P is $220, or $5.50 each. Neither price is a bad return on investment. Imagine what an MS-65, -66 or -67 could bring.

Why are they so valuable? The reason is that the U.S. Mint did not produce uncirculated coin sets,  popularly called mint sets, in either year and hobby habit from the 1960s of saving roll or bag quantities of coins had pretty much died out.

The result is that anyone trying to put an uncirculated quarter set together has to work a bit to find examples of 1982-P and 1983-P quarters.

I don’t think the collectors of those years believed that today’s prices could be possible with such high mintages, but then that scepticism is what kept me and millions of others from saving them in any quantity. In the end, that’s what makes a coin valuable.

If you still have the Numismatic News subscription premium from those years, which were uncirculated sets that we assembled privately, take a look at those quarters. You might want to get them out of your junk drawer.

My return trip from Colorado Springs, Colo., yesterday was uneventful and on time. I got back to Iola about 8:30 last night. Considering the headlines about airlines in newspapers lately, I feel fortunate.

The sunny weather of Colorado has given way for me to the gloom and rain of Iola. The office is kind of empty. Our antiques group has borrowed numismatic personnel to help staff our Atlantique City show out in New Jersey. The misspelling of “Atlantic” is a deliberate play on “antique.”

I also had the usual pile of snail mail waiting for me. The clock ticks even when I am not here. E-mail I have not yet even glanced at. The blog comes first.

I see the Mint has made progress. The uncirculated “W” Gold American Eagle coins are back on sale with new and higher prices. The one-ounce piece is $831.95, a premium of almost $75 to current gold bullion value.

The proof gold American Eagles and the uncirculated “W” platinum American Eagles remain off sale.

Today I will focus on pricing of another kind as the Coin Market section gets ready to go to press tomorrow. The 40-page monthly section will be bound into the Nov. 6 issue of Numismatic News, which goes to press a week from today. Harry Miller is staying busy keeping up with the changing prices.

After that comes the holiday gift guide section. Yes, the holidays are coming. It doesn’t seem possible.

For a little over an hour yesterday, I was taking notes as fast as my hands could move my pen across my note pad. The American Numismatic Association announced its decision to fire executive director Christopher Cipoletti. I was attending the public portion of the board meeting.

At that point, I want to yell, “Stop. That’s enough. I have this week’s front page.” But for the ANA board of governors, they had a large number of other tasks at hand during this first meeting where everyone is together since the Milwaukee, Wis., convention in August. They had to provide that information also.

I ended up filing three stories with the office. One was about the firing and the task of finding a new executive director. A second story was about other business. If not for being in the shadow of the firing, the other business would have been the front page material. The ANA canceled the San Francisco museum project, which would have put a 7,800 square foot ANA museum in the Old San Francisco Mint. This follows an Oct. 2 decision to cancel the Washington museum plans. Now only a possible enlargement of the Colorado Springs, Colo., museum is still under active consideration, but that could bite the dust too for lack of funds.

What I didn’t get to do was talk to Walter Ostromecki to find out how it feels to see this day come. He was removed as a member of the board of governors just two years ago at the October board sessions. Many ANA members were outraged and they had their way when they voted to return him to office in this year’s election. My third story was about Walter’s emergency kidney stone surgery in Colorado Springs. I am told he is OK.

Three stories are not a bad afternoon’s work.

When I arrived at the Antlers Hotel yesterday in Colorado Springs just before 6 p.m., who was sitting in the lobby to greet me but Alan Herbert, the Numismatic News Answerman. I had expected to telephone him once I got settled in my room. We were going to go out for supper. Plans changed when he told me that there was no room for him in the hotel. He and I decided to share a room and that solved the problem. What event was filling the hotel I have not yet figured out.

Alan is in town to deliver a report to the board about membership. He is chairman of the membership committee. It has hit the floor running and has already had two monthly telephone conference calls, a rather new idea for an ANA committee. President Barry Stuppler has participated in both. Membership is critical to the future of the organization.

Alan said the tensions of the election campaign did not have an adverse impact on overall membership and as soon as the results were known, overall membership started moving ahead. The specifics of his report will be revealed later today. Membership has been hovering around 32,000 in recent years.

In addition to getting the attention of the ANA president, the committee includes some high-powered names, including newly elected governor Clifford Mishler and Farran Zerbe Award winners John and Nancy Wilson. It would be safe to call John and Nancy Mr. And Mrs. ANA. They have poured enormous energy over the years into recruiting new members. If we all did as they do routinely, there would be no need for a membership committee. The ANA would be beating them off with a stick.

Because of the time difference, I am writing this before my breakfast. Can you tell that this was written before that oh so important first cup of coffee? No? Well my stomach can. I am off to satisfy this most insistent of critics.

Look at that. The proof gold American Eagle sales have been suspended on the Mint Web site. Proof platinum American Eagles remain on sale as do the silver American Eagles.