2007-D Idaho

Denver's 2007 Idaho quarter carries Don Everhart's "Esto Perpetua" reverse: a peregrine falcon perched against a clean outline of the state, the Latin motto curving above. The phrase, traditionally translated as "Let It Be Perpetual," has appeared on Idaho's state seal since 1863, predating statehood by twenty-seven years. Everhart kept the design spare, letting the bird and the state silhouette carry the entire field. Idaho ratified its statehood on July 3, 1890 as the forty-third state, the year after the great northern-tier admission cycle and just one week before Wyoming joined as the forty-fourth. Denver struck 286,800,000 pieces, sitting between the Philadelphia 294.6 million figure and below the Wyoming D-mint surge of 320.8 million that would close the year. The peregrine choice carried environmental weight at issue: the species had been functionally absent from the lower 48 for decades after DDT exposure crashed reproduction, and Idaho's Peregrine Fund reintroduction work made the bird a state-recovery icon by the mid-1980s.

Strikes on Denver Idahos come up cleanly defined more often than not, with the falcon's beak, eye, and chest feathering serving as the natural detail registers. Weak strikes show up first as softness along the state outline's southern border and along the bird's tail feathers where the relief sits deepest. Washington's cheek and hair-above-ear remain the obverse weak points for grading, and 2007-D 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 anchor to the issue.

The 2007-D Idaho sits a few million coins below its Philadelphia counterpart, putting both halves of the year's P/D pair near the top of 2007's mintage table. 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 falcon-and-state-outline composition gives the design clean negative space that photographs especially well in registry-set documentation. For wider context, see the 50 State Quarters series history.