2016-S Fort Moultrie, NIFC

The 2016-S Fort Moultrie, NIFC closed the fifth year of San Francisco business-strike ATB production, the fifth and final 2016 design sold direct to collectors. Richard Masters' reverse depicts Sergeant William Jasper raising a recovered colors during the June 1776 British naval bombardment of the palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island, the engagement that gave South Carolina its palmetto-tree emblem. The same composition carries on the Philadelphia and Denver circulation strikes. The Mint produced 1,093,510 pieces, matching the uniform 2016 NIFC figure and rounding out a fifth-year run that totaled roughly 5.47 million S-mint business strikes across the year's five designs, the lowest annual NIFC total in the 2012-2016 batch.

Authentication is finish identification rather than a metallurgical test. The coin is a business strike with cartwheel luster across the fields, distinct from the 2016-S clad and silver proofs of the same design that carry mirrored fields and frosted devices. The S mintmark above Washington's head is identical across all three product categories, so the separator rests on field reflection: cartwheel rotation reads business strike, deep mirror reads proof. Masters' figural composition relies on fine detail in Jasper's uniform and the colors he holds aloft, and on a NIFC business strike those elements read with the 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, 24.26 mm) follows the standard Washington quarter formula since 1965.

This is a Regular-classification issue with crossover demand beyond NIFC-set completists. The Fort Moultrie design draws constituencies among Revolutionary War collectors and South Carolina regional buyers in addition to the standard NIFC-run audience, since the Jasper rescue is one of the most iconic moments of the early American war effort and a state-symbol origin story. Population reports at MS67 are well-supplied, MS68 examples come up regularly, and pricing follows 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 issue 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.