Standing Liberty Quarters (1916–1930)

MacNeil Won a Three-Way Competition; His Liberty Stepped into a World War

When Mint Director Robert W. Woolley invited three sculptors to submit designs for the quarter in 1915 and 1916, he was responding to the same broad campaign for coinage reform that had produced Saint-Gaudens's eagles and Victor Brenner's Lincoln cent. Hermon MacNeil, Adolph Weinman, and Albin Polasek each submitted proposals; MacNeil won. Weinman, who did not receive the quarter commission, won the dime and the half dollar instead. MacNeil's obverse presents Liberty stepping forward through a gateway in a low wall, her left arm raised holding a shield, her right hand extended with an olive branch, and her figure facing toward Europe, where the Great War was in its second year when the design was selected. The intent was explicit: America prepared to defend itself while still offering peace. IN GOD WE TRUST is inscribed along the top of the wall, split on either side of Liberty.¹

The reverse carries an eagle in full flight, wings spread. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA arcs around the top; E PLURIBUS UNUM appears in the field; QUARTER DOLLAR appears at the bottom. The composition is among the most kinetic in American coin design: both sides show figures in motion, and the combination of high relief and careful modeling produces a coin that reads differently at each viewing angle. MacNeil's initial obverse left Liberty's right breast uncovered, in a classical tradition consistent with earlier American allegorical coinage. Later accounts blamed a public outcry for the decision to cover her, but David Lange concedes there is no evidence of one and suggests objections inside the Treasury Department were the more likely cause; MacNeil himself also wanted to rework a design the Mint had altered without him. The Mint modified the design in 1917, adding chain mail to cover Liberty's breast and making additional changes to both sides, beginning the three-type structure that runs through the series.²

Three Types Across Fifteen Years

The Date at the Bottom of the Pedestal Wore Away First

The date on Type 1 and Type 2 Standing Liberty quarters sits at the very bottom of Liberty's pedestal, the shallowest point in the design's relief. In normal circulation it wore smooth before the major design elements showed significant wear. By late 1924 quarters were coming back to the Mint with the date worn completely away, coins that were technically still negotiable but unidentifiable as to date. Mint officials solved the problem without seeking new authorizing legislation by recessing the date into the pedestal field beginning with 1925, so that it sat protected rather than exposed. Type 3 quarters consequently survive in lower grades with readable dates far more often than Type 2 coins of equivalent wear. A collector looking at a flatly struck Very Good Standing Liberty quarter from 1917 through 1924 may be holding a dateless coin; that same coin in About Good from 1925 onward almost always shows its date.³

The 1916: 52,000 Struck in Two Weeks, Released Into Commerce Without Notice

Production of the 1916 Standing Liberty quarter began on December 16, 1916 and ended on December 31, with 52,000 pieces struck. No public announcement accompanied the new design. The coins were released into commerce on January 17, 1917, alongside the first 1917 Type 1 production, and virtually all entered circulation immediately. PCGS CoinFacts estimates that about 10,000 survive across all grades and about 500 in Mint State 60 or above. The combination of low mintage, universal circulation, and no collector interest at the time of issue makes high-grade survivors genuinely exceptional. A Gem (Mint State 65 or finer) Full Head 1916 is a rare and costly coin even by the standards of this series.⁴

The 1916 is also a frequent target for counterfeiters. The usual fake is a 1917 Type 1 quarter with its last digit tooled into a 6, and because that host coin already carries the Type 1 reverse with no stars below the eagle, the reverse cannot expose it; the date itself must be checked under magnification for tool marks. Any coin presented as a 1916 that carries three stars under the eagle is a counterfeit or a fraudulently altered piece. PCGS or NGC authentication is mandatory before any purchase.

The 1918/7-S: The Overdate That Outranks the Key Date in Mint State Rarity

Among Type 2 Standing Liberty rarities, the 1918/7-S overdate is the most extreme. In 1918 an unused 1917-dated working die was overdated and put into service at San Francisco, leaving the 7 visible beneath the 8 of the date; J.H. Cline treats it as a recut date, while some later specialists argue the die took a second impression from a 1918 hub. The overdate feature was not recognized until 1937, by which time most examples had long since passed through commerce. No separate mintage was recorded; specialists account for fewer than 1,000 survivors, which led Cline, in the fourth edition of Standing Liberty Quarters, to speculate that only about 2,500 were struck, while PCGS CoinFacts estimates about 3,000 survivors in all grades and about 200 in Mint State. In Mint State, the 1918/7-S surpasses the 1916 as the rarest coin in the series. Full Head specimens are extraordinary rarities: PCGS estimates that only about 50 survive. There is no known Gem Full Head 1918/7-S.⁵

The Bob R. Simpson Collection example, PCGS Mint State 64 Plus Full Head, sold at Heritage Auctions, September 17, 2020, for $336,000, the current auction record for the date. The coin is described as tied for the finest Full Head specimen known. Authentication requires confirmation of the overdate feature under magnification, with the top bar of the 7 cutting through the upper loop of the 8.

Full Head: The Strike Designation That Drives the Market More Than Any Date

Standing Liberty quarters carry their own strike designation, Full Head, comparable to Full Bands on the Mercury dime. Full Head designation, awarded when Liberty's hairline at the forehead, the three leaf sprigs in her hair, and the ear indentation are all clearly struck, is the collecting benchmark that separates market-premium coins from standard examples. On many dates, particularly from Denver and San Francisco, only a small fraction of Mint State survivors carry the Full Head designation, because the design's high relief concentrated striking pressure on the central obverse in a way that regularly left the head details soft even on otherwise choice coins. For certain dates, Full Head is effectively a condition rarity regardless of mintage: the 1920-S with a mintage of 6,380,000 is a standard date in circulated grades but a major prize in Full Head at any Mint State level. The 1927-S has the second-lowest recorded mintage in the series at 396,000, and a Mint State example with a Full Head is far scarcer than even that mintage suggests.⁶

For Type 2 Full Head certification, PCGS and NGC both require complete hairlines, three distinct leaf sprigs, and a visible ear hole. For Type 1, the standards differ slightly because the design elements are positioned differently. Cline's reference provides the diagnostic detail that distinguishes genuine Full Head examples from borderline strikes at each type. Purchasing a Full Head coin without Cline in hand is inadvisable at any price level above the common date range.

No Proofs: The Only 20th-Century Regular Issue Series Without Them

The Standing Liberty quarter is the only 20th-century United States regular-issue silver series for which no official Proof coins were struck. A handful of specimen strikings of the 1917 Type 1 are known, produced with extra care in die preparation and striking quality, but these are not Proofs in the strict numismatic sense and are not consistently documented as a distinct production category. The absence of Proofs is a matter of timing: the Mint stopped striking Proof coins for sale after 1916 and did not resume until 1936, six years after the last Standing Liberty quarter.⁷

Building the Set

A three-type set is achievable at moderate cost using common Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 dates in circulated grades. The type collector seeking Full Head examples in each type will find Type 3 most accessible and Type 1 from 1917 requiring more searching; a Full Head type coin from each period represents a more challenging goal than the corresponding effort in almost any other American series. A complete date-and-mintmark set includes 38 coins (counting both 1917 types and the 1918/7-S) across the three mints and 14 production years, with the 1916 and 1918/7-S as the financial obstacles and the 1921, 1923-S, and 1927-S as secondary key dates that require planning. No quarters were struck at any mint in 1922.

J.H. Cline's Standing Liberty Quarters, 4th ed. (Zyrus Press, 2007) is the controlling specialist reference and provides the population estimates, Full Head percentages by date, and variety documentation that any serious collector requires. Roger Burdette's Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921 (Seneca Mill Press, 2005) covers the design competition and the political context of the series' opening years. Bowers's A Guide Book of Mercury Dimes, Standing Liberty Quarters, and Liberty Walking Half Dollars (Whitman Publishing, 2015) provides collecting context from the type-set perspective.