1818 25C MS64 Certification #06194978, PCGS #5322

1818 25C MS64 PCGS. B-4, R2. Population (PCGS 45/23, NGC 72/49). The Capped Bust coinage of John Reich was initially developed in 1807, beginning with the half dollar. According to the late Walter Breen, writing in his Encyclopedia: "Reich's new conception for the silver coins was an uncommonly buxom effigy of Ms. Liberty, wearing a mobcap inscribed with her name. (This was for generations misnamed a turban by people who never saw a real one; and even from the beginning it was taken to represent the pilleus or Phrygian liberty cap, whereas Reich actually intended it as a fashionable headdress, somewhat like that on some portraits of Martha Washington. Contemporaneous newspaper scurrility attacked the device as portraying 'the artist's fat mistress.') Reich placed it first on half dollars and half eagles, fall 1807; then quarter eagles 1808, dismes 1809, and finally quarter dollars, the next time banks ordered them 1815." According to the information presented in A.W. Browning’s work on Early Quarter Dollars the total number of pieces coined were 361,174 with no less than 10 varieties known. Die State VII, which Breen considered very rare. This specimen was struck from multiply clashed dies with bold die cracks that bisect the portrait and pass through Liberty's shoulder and the D in UNITED. Aside from its dramatic die cracks, B-4 can be identified by the UNIT in UNITED, which are very close at the tops of the letters. Deep rose-gold and forest-green toning embraces this sharply struck type coin. The surfaces are clean save for a minor thin handling mark in the field near the eagle's beak.

Ron Guth

In 1818, Mint employees pulled out all the stops and cranked out over 361,000 Quarter Dollars, the largest mintage for the denomination since its inception in 1796, and a record that would remain unbroken until 1831.  As a result, the 1818 is the most plentiful of the pre-1831 Quarters -- by far -- and it is an excellent choice for type purposes.  Numerous Mint State examples exist, but it would be a stretch to call them common.  The best example is a solitary PCGS MS67 currently in the High Desert Collection.  This outstanding coin is lustrous and has tremendous eye appeal because of its colorful, original toning.