1807

Final-year status anchors the 1807 quarter's place in the series. The Philadelphia Mint struck 220,643 pieces, the highest output of any Draped Bust quarter date and a clear margin above the 206,124-piece 1806. After this delivery the denomination went silent for seven years. No quarters were coined from 1808 through 1814, and when production resumed in 1815 it carried John Reich's Capped Bust design rather than Robert Scot's drapery-and-eagle composition. Multiple die pairings reached the press during 1807, cataloged by A. W. Browning as B-1 and B-2 with documented subvarieties; "die marriage" is shorthand for a specific obverse-and-reverse pairing. Strike quality stayed uneven across the run, and drapery folds, hair detail above Liberty's ear, and the eagle's breast feathers commonly read soft on circulated coins. Adjustment marks, the parallel file lines the Mint applied to overweight planchets before striking, turn up on a meaningful share of pieces and count as original production rather than damage.

The site classifies 1807 as a Semi-Key, a placement that fits the survival data: PCGS estimates roughly 2,250 examples across all grades, with about 47 grading MS60 or finer and only a handful reaching MS65 or above on the Mint State scale, where MS60 marks the lowest uncirculated tier and MS70 is theoretically perfect. Authentication starts at the scale: a genuine planchet weighs 6.74 grams, and cast counterfeits typically miss that figure by tenths of a gram while showing grainy surface texture under 10x magnification. Date tooling is the second checkpoint. Because 1807 is the most available date in the series, deceptive sellers have historically reworked the final digit to mimic the much scarcer 1804, so the loop should sweep the date numerals for raised metal, hairline grooves, or unnaturally crisp edges around any digit. Only the Heraldic Eagle reverse exists for 1807, and purchases should be limited to coins slabbed by a recognized third-party grading service, abbreviated TPG, such as PCGS or NGC.

For a collector assembling the six-date set, 1807 and 1806 share the role of most-affordable entry point, and circulated examples appear at major auctions and dealer inventories with reasonable frequency. The condition census tells the opposite story. Pogue, Eliasberg, and Simpson coins occupy the top of the population reports, and Stack's Bowers and Heritage archives record MS66 examples crossing the block at strong prices. Buyers should expect color, surface, and strike to drive value far more than raw grade once the coin clears About Uncirculated. Look for original toning, undisturbed fields, and detail in the drapery and feathers rather than chasing the highest number on the holder. For the type's design lineage, Browning's die-marriage census, and the seven-year quarter gap that followed, see the Draped Bust Quarter series history.