1971-D

The 1971-D anchored the inaugural year at 68,587,424 pieces, the largest first-year output of the series and roughly 45 percent more than Philadelphia's contribution. Frank Gasparro's Eisenhower obverse and Apollo-11-derived eagle reverse arrived together on a 38.1 mm copper-nickel clad planchet, restoring the dollar to its traditional large-format size for the first time since the Peace Dollar ended in 1935. Denver was assigned the bulk of the launch order because the Federal Reserve channels supplied by the central facility covered the largest commercial endpoints, and the Treasury expected the new dollar to circulate against the size template Americans associated with silver dollars.

Strike quality on the 1971-D runs sharper than the same year's Philadelphia work. Denver dies tended to produce cleaner moon-surface detail and a fuller eagle, with high-point softness on Eisenhower's hair concentrated at later die states rather than across the run. Most surviving examples grade MS64 to MS66 from Treasury bag breaks, with PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC populations thinning at MS67. The differential between MS66 and MS67 is the only place this date carries any meaningful premium, and even there the gap is modest by series standards. No major varieties are catalogued, and the 1971-D collecting profile turns entirely on grade rather than variety.

This is a regular common date that completes the first-year pair with the 1971 Philadelphia. Original Mint Sets and broken Treasury bags remain the standard source of higher-grade examples, and certified MS66 coins trade at modest premiums above the 1972-D, the next-easiest D-mint date. Pricing has held flat for two decades, and the 1971-D's main collecting interest sits in its status as the inaugural-year Denver issue and in the strike-quality differential against the 1971 Philadelphia. For the launch context and the longer arc of the design's circulation failure, see the Eisenhower Dollar series history.