Designed by: Christian Gobrecht
Issue Dates: 1854-1855
Composition: 90% silver, 10% copper
Diameter: 24.3 mm
Weight: 6.22 grams (95.98 grains)
Edge: Reeded
Business Strike Mintage: 17,293,400
The Liberty Seated quarter with arrows at date and rays on the reverse design was modified in 1854 by dropping the rays on the reverse but retaining the obverse arrows. Otherwise, the type is essentially the same as produced from 1838 through early 1853. Coins were produced at the Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco mints, the latter mint beginning production of the denomination in 1855. The most plentiful of the two 1854-1855 dates is 1854, of which 12,380,000 were produced, a figure which accounts for over half of the entire quantity of the type.
Specimens of the 1854, the most common date, are readily available in grades from Good through Extremely Fine. AU pieces are scarcer, and Uncirculated coins are fairly elusive. Superb Uncirculated pieces are rare.
Further Reading
In 1853 arrows were added to the date to signify a reduction in weight from 6.68 to 6.22 grams. Around that time the large production of gold in California made gold "common'' in relation to silver, with the result that silver prices rose. It became profitable to take current American coins and melt them down for bullion value. Faced with the prospect of nearly complete withdrawal of coins from circulation, the Treasury Department mandated a weight reduction. The arrows were continued through 1855.
On the reverse of 1853 issues a sunburst or rays design appeared. The type set collector then thus isolates the 1853 with arrows and rays issues as a design distinct from the 1854 and 1855 with arrows but without rays. Although 1855-O and 1855-S (the latter being the first year of quarter dollar coinage at the San Francisco Mint) are elusive, enough 1853 and 1854 Philadelphia pieces were made that the type is plentiful in all grades, although collector and investor demand has escalated the valuation of Uncirculated examples in the past decade or two.
