1867

The 1867 Seated Liberty Quarter records a Philadelphia delivery of just 20,625 pieces, one of the smallest business-strike outputs of the entire With Motto subtype and a continuation of the suppressed Reconstruction-era production pattern. Specie payments remained suspended during 1867, U.S. paper currency continued to trade at a discount against hard silver and gold, and the Mint had little institutional incentive to push subsidiary silver into a market that would not absorb it. The coin was struck on the 6.22-gram weight standard set by the Coinage Act of February 21, 1853 and belongs to the With Motto subtype that ran from 1866 through 1873, with the scroll reading "IN GOD WE TRUST" above the eagle's head on the reverse.

What grades and authenticates an 1867 starts with the reverse motto, which must be complete, properly placed on its scroll, and undisturbed at the boundaries. The drapery at Liberty's elbow should be cleanly defined. Strike is generally average for the period, with occasional softness on the eagle's right leg and the upper shield lines, and Larry Briggs catalogs the working die marriages for the year. The small mintage means most surviving coins trace to a narrow group of die pairs whose breaks and clash markers help confirm attribution. Weight on a genuine planchet falls within tolerance of 6.22 grams. Date placement and the absence of tooling around the digits remain practical authentication checks.

For a date-set builder, the 1867 is a genuine Semi-Key that surfaces in Very Good through Fine with some regularity and becomes meaningfully scarce in Extremely Fine and above. Mint State coins are condition rare, and the PCGS and NGC certified populations skew sharply to circulated grades. Any problem-free uncirculated example commands a substantial premium over circulated competition because the surviving unworn population was thinned by routine commerce through the 1870s and 1880s. The issue is a recommended certified buy at any meaningful price level, both for authentication confidence and for the assurance that an original circulated coin has not been cleaned. For the broader story of Gobrecht's design, the 1866 motto addition, and the series' production arc, see the Seated Liberty Quarter series history.