2025-S Stacey Park Milbern Proof

San Francisco's clad proof tribute to Stacey Park Milbern brings mirrored polish to a portrait of one of the youngest figures honored across the American Women Quarters Program. Milbern, born in 1987 and lost in 2020, organized at the intersection of disability rights, racial justice, and queer advocacy, co-founding the Disability Justice Culture Club in Oakland and building mentorship pipelines that reached far beyond California. Her work informed federal disability policy under the Obama administration and shaped emergency preparedness frameworks during the earliest weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2025 program year closes the four-year tribute series that Public Law 116-330 created in January 2021, and this proof issue with its 800,000 mintage represents a typical San Francisco proof output for the final year, sold primarily within annual proof set packaging.

The Laura Gardin Fraser Washington portrait carries forward on the obverse, while the reverse, designed through the Artistic Infusion Program and detailed in the United States Mint press release, presents Milbern with disability justice and solidarity motifs. Specifications match the standard clad proof format at 5.67 grams, 24.3 millimeters, with a reeded edge in 91.67 percent copper and 8.33 percent nickel clad over a copper core. Authentication on this proof relies on the deeply mirrored fields, fully frosted devices producing visible cameo contrast, the S mintmark placed crisply above the date, and squared rims diagnostic of a die-polished proof strike. Surface examination should show no flow lines, and the rim-to-field transition should appear knife-edge under low magnification.

Most surviving examples grade PR-69 Deep Cameo or Ultra Cameo through Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC), with PR-70 grades commanding meaningful premiums in registry competition. Original proof set packaging remains the most efficient acquisition path for the type. Original government proof set packaging retains modest premiums on the secondary market, and intact early-release labels add a further increment for registry-set participants. See the Washington Quarters (American Women) series history.