2015-D Blue Ridge Parkway

Denver's 2015 Blue Ridge Parkway production reached 275,000,000 pieces, less than 55 percent of Philadelphia's record 505,200,000 output for the same design and one of the largest mint-to-mint mintage gaps in the entire ATB run. The Philadelphia figure was the leading anomaly of 2015's Federal Reserve quarter demand surge, and Denver's 275 million Blue Ridge total would still be a high-volume figure in any other year of the series. Frank Morris's reverse, the Carolina Northern flying squirrel on a winter branch with leafless trees framing the composition, is the same design used at Philadelphia and was struck from the same master dies.

Strike quality on the Denver issue tracks the broader 2015 Denver output: well struck on the central squirrel figure through the early die states, with predictable softening on the individual fur strands and the bark texture of the branch as dies aged. Graders concentrate on the squirrel's tail contour and the small eye and ear detail when separating gem from near-gem. The clad composition (75% copper-nickel over a pure copper core, 5.67 grams total) matches every Washington quarter struck since 1965, and counterfeit risk is functionally nil for circulation-strike modern clad. The high-grade market runs through PCGS and NGC; raw examples in the MS65 to MS66 band remain easy to find in original Denver bank rolls.

This is a Regular-classification issue where the action sits at MS67 and above. Population counts thin sharply at MS68, with the Denver issue typically pricing alongside its record-mintage Philadelphia counterpart in slabbed grades since high-grade supply rather than headline mintage controls the registry market. The flying squirrel subject has helped support steady collector interest in the Blue Ridge Parkway design across both mints, particularly among buyers focused on the program's less obvious wildlife choices. Roll hunters in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern states still recover MS65 examples from original bank rolls. For the broader story of the ATB program and the series' design arc, see the Washington ATB series history.