Standing Liberty Quarter - Production and Collecting

Production and Collecting

The Standing Liberty quarter was struck at the Philadelphia Mint from 1916 to 1930 with the exception only of 1922, when no quarters were struck at any mint. It was produced less regularly at Denver and San Francisco beginning in 1917. The mint mark "D" for Denver or "S" for San Francisco may be found at the base of the wall, just to the left of Liberty's visible foot. While the key date in the series is the 1916 with a mintage of 52,000 (it catalogs for $3,250 even in worn Good-4 condition), the 1921 and the 1923 struck at San Francisco (1923-S) are also expensive, with costs in the hundreds of dollars even for a circulated specimen. The Standing Liberty quarter is the only 20th-century regular issue U.S. coin for which no proof coins were struck. However, a handful of specimen examples of the 1917 Type 1 issue (that is, the coins struck early in 1917 before MacNeil revised the design) exist. Breen reported six known, all with exceptionally sharp central details.

It had long been a practice at the Mint to recut unused dies at the end of the year to show the following year's date. During the 18th and 19th centuries, die cutting was difficult and expensive. As making dies became cheaper and easier, the practice mostly died out around the turn of the 20th century. However, a 1917-S Type 2 die, unused by the San Francisco Mint, was recut and used to strike several thousand 1918-S quarters. Few are known, and the coins command prices in the low thousands even in well-circulated conditions.

By late 1924, Mint officials realized there was a problem with the quarter in circulation. Quarters were returning to the Mint with the date completely worn off. Unwilling to seek another act of Congress, Mint officials made the step on which the date appears recessed into the design, rather than raised from it. This change solved the problem; quarters from 1925 and after are more common and cheaper in lower grades as they have survived with their dates intact. This action was among the last acts of the Engraver's Department under Morgan, who died on January 4, 1925 and was succeeded by John R. Sinnock. The modification meant that the 1927-S, with a mintage of 396,000 is much cheaper in circulated grades than the 1923-S, with a mintage of 1,360,000, though the 1927-S is more expensive in uncirculated grades.

No quarters were struck in 1931; there was no call for them in commerce due to the Depression. Since 1930, there had been an effort among those organizing the commemoration of the bicentennial of George Washington's 1732 birth to seek a Washington half dollar, to be struck as the regular issue for 1932. When a bill for a Washington commemorative was introduced to Congress in February 1931, it changed the quarter rather than the half dollar. While the reasons for the change were not recorded, the House Coinage Committee issued a memorandum stating that "the new design would replace the present type of quarter dollar", was on "a popular denomination" and "would replace an unsatisfactory design now being issued". Congress passed the act on March 4, 1931, and the new Washington quarter began to be struck in 1932, ending the Standing Liberty series. Nevertheless, many Standing Liberty quarters remained in circulation until silver coins began to be hoarded by the public in 1964, prompting the change to base-metal pieces.