2004-P Michigan

Philadelphia's 2004 Michigan quarter opened the program's sixth year and carries Donna Weaver's compact reverse: a state outline tracing the Lower and Upper Peninsulas, with the five Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) wrapping the silhouette in a continuous waterline. "Great Lakes State" arcs above the design. Michigan ratified its statehood in 1837 as the twenty-sixth state, and the coin's January 26 release marked the program's first issue of the second half of the rollout. Philadelphia struck 233,800,000 pieces, the lower side of the 2004-P lineup. Weaver compressed an unusually geography-heavy brief into a balanced field by letting the lake outlines double as a frame around the peninsular silhouette, a layout choice that gives the design its readability at quarter scale.

Strikes on Philadelphia Michigans come up cleanly defined more often than not. The Lower Peninsula's lakeshore edges and the Upper Peninsula's slim ridge resolve well on early-die-state coins; weak strikes show up first as softness along the southwestern Lake Michigan coast where the peninsular outline is thinnest. Washington's cheek and hair-above-ear remain the obverse weak points for grading, and 2004-P bag handling typically caps many candidates at MS66. PCGS and NGC populations run deep at MS66, narrower at MS67, and meaningfully scarce at MS68 in the population reports kept by the two major third-party grading services (TPGs). No FS-listed varieties have anchored to the issue; light die cracks across the Upper Peninsula reverse have been reported on cherrypicked rolls but carry no premium attribution.

The 2004-P Michigan opens the year-6 Philadelphia lineup and benefits from Great Lakes geography that gives the coin display appeal across the Midwest state-pair audience. Roll searchers continue to pull premium strikes for full-detail gems, and MS67 examples remain available for collectors completing a top-grade run on a working budget. The design sits naturally next to the other peninsular and lake-state coins in topical sets. For wider context, see the 50 State Quarters series history.