POST FALLS - He was just another bored 12-year-old kid, whiling away the summer hours hanging out at his family's cabin on Lake Pend Oreille.

Young Tim Kirk of Coeur d'Alene pooled his boyhood fortune, half a dozen quarters. He got his mom's fingernail polish and on one side of each quarter, he painted a "T." On the other side, Tim painted a "K."

"I was a kid just looking for something to do at the cabin," said Kirk, now 36 and assistant manager at Ziggy's in Post Falls.

And almost as soon as the nail polish had dried, Kirk forgot about his art project.

"I spent the quarters," he said Thursday. "Probably bought some candy or something. I never thought about it again."

Until almost a quarter century had passed.

One day recently, Kirk pulled change out of his pocket and tossed it into a change dish he keeps in his office. There, staring up at him, was a quarter with a "T" painted in nail polish.

"Oh, that's cool," he thought. "I did something like that when I was a kid."

Then Kirk turned the coin over, and sure enough, there was a painted "K."

Kirk told his parents about the old quarter coming home.

"My mom didn't remember it, but my dad did," Kirk said of the coin-painting caper in the cabin so long ago.

Dana Peite, an estimator at Ziggy's who has worked with Kirk for about six years, marveled at the discovery when Kirk showed it to him on Wednesday.

"My wife works at a bank," said Peite. "Money moves. After all these years, for that quarter to come back - that's kind of like winning the lottery."

This lottery jackpot, however, is only 25 cents. Kirk won't be investing it in candy this time around.

"I'll hang onto it," he said.