2013-S Perry's Memorial, NIFC

The 2013-S Perry's Memorial, NIFC carries Don Everhart's Perry monument reverse on a San Francisco business-strike planchet, the second of the year's five collector-only quarter releases. Everhart's design depicts the statue of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry that stands inside the rotunda of the international peace memorial at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, commemorating the Battle of Lake Erie of 1813 and the lasting peace between the United States and what is now Canada. The Mint produced 1,232,104 pieces, the standard 2013 NIFC print run, sold direct to collectors through annual Uncirculated Coin Sets and two-roll bag products from the Mint catalog.

The coin is a business strike with cartwheel luster, not a proof, and the distinction is the load-bearing authentication call. Both the 2013-S NIFC and the 2013-S clad and silver proofs of this design share an S mintmark above Washington's head, so finish identification is the only reliable separator. Cartwheel rotation across the open fields means business strike; mirrored fields with frosted devices mean proof. The clad composition (75% copper-nickel over a pure copper core, 5.67 grams) follows the standard quarter formula in use since 1965, and authentication of modern collector-channel product is functionally a finish-and-mintmark exercise. Counterfeit pressure on a coin that retailed at a few dollars per unit is essentially absent.

This is a Regular-classification issue tied to set demand. Population reports at MS67 are comfortable, MS68 examples come up regularly, and most NIFC-run builders source the date raw from broken annual Mint Sets or in low-tier slabs at modest premiums. The Perry's Memorial design has a smaller crossover following than several of the year's other releases, since the monument is less widely recognized than the natural landscapes that dominate the program, so the date trades primarily on NIFC-set demand rather than design-specialist interest. Original Mint Set packaging adds a small premium when intact, since the cardboard-and-cellophane assembly documents provenance through the official product channel. For the broader story of the ATB program and the NIFC collector-only product line, see the Washington ATB series history.