1842 25C Small Date (Proof)

P. Scott Rubin: The 1842 Small Date Quarter is a Proof only issue, it is a very rare coin with only six known examples. One coin is in the collection of the American Numismatic Society, a gift from J.P. Morgan (originally in the Brock Collection which at one time was in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania).

The first time this variety was offered appears to be in the December of 1890 sale by Philadelphia coin dealers S.H. and Henry Chapman of the Thomas Cleneay Collection. The really odd thing is this collection contained two 1842 Proof Sets, lots 837 and 838, this means that two 1842 Small Date Quarters were offered in this 1890 Sale. The next offering I can find of an 1842 Small Date Quarter and the first time it is described as having a Small Date is in Charles Steigerwalt’s Fixed Price List number 39 dated June, 1893 where he offers one for $20. The only other 19th century auction of an 1842 Small Date Quarter comes in the Chapman Brothers sale of December, 1895 offering of the Richard B. Winsor Collection, again the Quarter is included in a Proof Set, without making note of the Small Date on the Quarter, but its lot description leads me to believe it is a reappearance of lot 838 of the 1890 Cleneay set.

In the first half of the 20th Century there appear to be only two auctions of this coin, the Chapman Brothers 1906 Sale of the H.P. Smith Collection and the 1915 U.S. Coin Co.’s May, 19th Sale. Since 1950 there have been twenty auctions of the five available 1842 Small Date Quarters. The last appearance of an 1842 Small Date Quarter occurred in Heritage’s August, 2013 Platinum Night Sale of the Ex. Eliasberg Specimen, where the PCGS PF-65 graded coin brought a record price of $258,500.