2015-S Kisatchie, NIFC

The 2015-S Kisatchie, NIFC carries Susan Gamble's wild turkey reverse on a San Francisco business-strike planchet, the second of the year's five collector-only quarter releases. Gamble's design places a wild turkey in the foreground of a longleaf pine forest, the dominant tree of the central Louisiana national forest the design honors. The Mint produced 1,177,515 pieces, the uniform 2015 NIFC figure, and sold them through annual Uncirculated Coin Sets and two-roll bag products from the catalog. Kisatchie is the only national forest in Louisiana and the only Louisiana site honored across the entire ATB program.

The coin is a business strike with cartwheel luster, not a proof, and the finish call is the only authentication question that matters. Both the 2015-S NIFC and the 2015-S clad and silver proofs of this design carry an S mintmark above Washington's head, so mintmark placement does not separate them. Field reflection is the test: cartwheel rotation across the open areas reads business strike, mirrored fields with frosted devices reads proof. Gamble's turkey composition relies on fine detail in the bird's feathering and the pine-needle texture of the forest floor, and on a NIFC business strike those elements read with standard Mint State soft definition rather than the high-contrast frosted relief a proof produces. The clad composition (75% copper-nickel over a pure copper core, 5.67 grams) is the standard Washington quarter formula since 1965.

This is a Regular-classification issue with a small wildlife-collector following beyond NIFC completists. The wild turkey is among the more visually striking subjects in the year's design lineup, and the issue carries a modest crossover constituency among collectors who chase U.S. coinage depicting North American game birds. Population reports at MS67 are well-stocked, MS68 examples come up regularly, and pricing tracks the NIFC norm of modest premiums for raw examples and small step-ups at certified gem grades. Set builders working through the 45-entry NIFC run pick the date up at near-retail through dealer inventory or eBay. For the broader story of the ATB program and the NIFC collector-only product line, see the Washington ATB series history.