1/4 Dollar USA (1776 - ) Silver

Obverse: Liberty standing, holding shield and olive branch. Motto at (IN GOD WE TRUST) sides. Mint letter (S) beneath the lower left star. Legend: LIBERTY Exergue: 1920

Reverse: American eagle in flight, motto (E PLVRIBVS VNVM) above, three stars below. Legend: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ***** QUARTER DOLLAR ****

The Standing Liberty Quarter was issued from 1916 to 1930 by the United States Mint. The Standing Liberty Quarter was designed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, who won a competition to redesign the coin. Type One (1916-1917) featured Liberty on the obverse and an American eagle in flight with no stars below on the reverse. Liberty carries an upraised shield in her left hand and an olive branch in her right hand; most notably, this coin was the only circulating coin to feature Liberty with a bare breast. There is some controversy over who modeled for the Standing Liberty Quarter, but it was either Doris Doscher or Broadway actress, Irene MacDowell.

The following year, a Liberty, Type 2 (1917-1930) was issued with several design changes, most notably covering Liberty’s chest with chain mail and the addition of three stars on the reverse under the eagle. A popular numismatic story is that the design was changed because of a public outcry regarding Liberty’s bared breast.

Early Standing Liberty quarters had the date too high and so it quickly wore off, although chemical treatment can sometimes bring back the numbers. For the collector this creates particular problems for the two rare issues of the series, the 1916 and the 1918/7-S. While the 1917 Type One issue is quite common, the previous year there was a very low mintage of only 52,000. Although some of these early pieces were quickly saved from circulation, this was not the case with the overstruck date issued two years later. In higher grades this is one of the most expensive circulating U.S. coins of the 20th century. In 1925 the date was recessed into the step, allowing the coin rim to protect it from wear. Evidently this modification did cause the dates to withstand circulation better, since pre-1925 dates fetch prices many times higher than post-1925 dates, even given roughly equal mintage numbers in the same state of preservation.