Barber Quarters (1892-1916)

Introduced as a replacement for the longstanding Liberty seated design, the Barber twenty-five-cent piece was produced continuously from 1892 until 1916. Coins were made at Philadelphia, Denver, New Orleans and San Francisco. Charles A. Barber designed the coin. His initial “B” appears on the obverse, on the truncation of Liberty’s neck. 

Mintmarks, when present, are found below the eagle’s tail on the reverse. There are three rare coins within the series: the 1896-S (mintage: 188,039), the 1901-S (mintage: 72,664), and the 1913-S (mintage: only 40,000 coins). The 1913-S is the lowest-mintage twentieth century standard-issue U.S. coin, and is highly prized in any condition. Well-worn coins of almost all other dates aside from these three are readily available. As with all other Barber coins, though, these quarters were workhorse coins. Many stayed in circulation until the 1960’s. Finding collectible examples in very fine or better grades is a great challenge for any coin collector.