Recessed-Date Standing Liberty Quarters

The Standing Liberty Quarter was struck from 1916 through 1930 and created not just a number of rarities, such as the 1916 key date and 1918/7-S overdate, as well as the 1921, 1923-S, and 1927-S semi keys. But what isn’t necessarily as apparent from a mere glance at mintage figures or price listings alone is the fact that the Standing Liberty Quarter is divided into a number of subtypes. Most prominent is the Type I versus Type 2 iterations, with the second type showing a chain mail across Miss Liberty’s torso where there wasn’t on the first; the arrangement of the stars and placement of the flying eagle device on the reverse of the two types is also different.

However, there is a third subtype that exists among Standing Liberty Quarters, and it concerns the prominence of the date on the obverse. Prior to 1925, the date numerals on the coin stood proud to the field and the surrounding design elements, aiding in the date to be one of the first elements to become obliterated through ordinary circulation wear. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of Standing Liberty Quarters – likely millions – to become essentially dateless.

This was changed in 1925, when the United States Mint recessed the date numerals to keep them from wearing off in circulation. This was achieved by hollowing out the pedestal upon which Miss Liberty stands and inserting the numerals within this recessed area of the design. The modification worked, allowing a great many more well-worn Standing Liberty Quarters struck from 1925 through 1930 to be easily identifiable by date without the aid of chemical decipherment or obscure, even cryptic, die diagnostics. The run of Standing Liberty Quarters struck from 1925 through 1930 is formally categorized by PCGS as Type 2b, Stars Below Eagle (Recessed Date).