2017-S George Rogers Clark, Silver Proof

San Francisco closed the 2017 silver-proof slate with Frank Morris's George Rogers Clark design at 522,526 pieces, the figure matching the U.S. Mint's Silver Proof Set sales total for 2017. The reverse renders Clark leading his Virginia militia through the flooded Wabash bottoms in February 1779 toward the British-held Fort Sackville at Vincennes, the campaign that secured the Old Northwest for the rebelling colonies during the Revolutionary War. The composition is the 90% silver, 10% copper alloy the Mint had used for silver proof quarters since 1992, weighing 6.25 grams and carrying .1808 troy ounces of pure silver across a 24.26-millimeter planchet with reeded edge. The issue is the fifth and final 2017 silver release and the 40th of the 56-design ATB program. The 2017-S George Rogers Clark Enhanced Uncirculated business strike is a separate catalog entry distributed in the 225th-anniversary Enhanced Uncirculated Coin Set, not a finish variant of the silver proof.

Authentication on the issue starts with weight. The 6.25-gram silver planchet against the 5.67-gram clad sister gives a calibrated scale a half-gram spread to resolve, the easiest non-destructive separation between the two products. The reeded edge reads silver around the perimeter without the reddish copper-core line a clad piece shows at an angle. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company, attach a Silver or S/Ag attribution to the slab insert alongside the proof grade and a Cameo (CAM) or Deep Cameo (DCAM) contrast designation, where DCAM is the standard outcome on modern San Francisco silver proofs because the working dies receive chemical etching before each press run. Strike diagnostics on the multi-figure marching composition sit at Clark's facial features, the militia rifles, and the water surface lapping at the men's mid-thighs; the wading-soldiers composition makes the water-line relief the primary diagnostic for separating PR69 from PR70.

The collector market positions the issue as a 2017 Silver Proof Set component with cross-disciplinary appeal to Revolutionary War, Indiana state-coinage, and Old Northwest history collectors. PR69-DCAM examples in PCGS or NGC holders move at a modest premium over the silver-spot floor carried by the 0.1808 ounce content, and PR70-DCAM examples sit a tier higher with registry-set buyers driving the spread. The George Rogers Clark issue caps the 2017 silver group as the second Revolutionary War-anchored design after 2016 Fort Moultrie, and the third such reverse in the program after 2015 Saratoga. The 522,526 silver print run sits at roughly 49 percent of the 1.08-million 2017 clad-proof figure. For the broader story of the ATB Silver Proof program and the series' production arc, see the Washington ATB series history.