1877 Liberty Seated Quarters 1838-1891 VF25

History

Liberty Seated quarters ran from 1838 through 1891, when Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber's Liberty Head design replaced them. IN GOD WE TRUST was added to the reverse of the quarter, half dollar and dollar in 1866, and the Mint Act of February 12, 1873 raised the authorized quarter weight from 96 to 96.45 grains, a change marked by arrows at the date on the 1873 and 1874 issues and dropped from 1875 onward, so the 1877-S is a With Motto, No Arrows coin. The variety itself began as a die-shop error at San Francisco: the engraver sank the S mintmark into the die on its side, then corrected the mistake by punching an upright S over the top of it.

Details

PCGS credits the design to Robert Ball Hughes and Christian Gobrecht. The coin was struck in 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper at 6.25 grams, measuring 24.30 mm with a reeded edge. San Francisco produced 8,996,000 quarters dated 1877, one of the largest mintages in the series, though no separate figure exists for the S over Horizontal S dies within that total.

Features

The reverse carries IN GOD WE TRUST above the eagle and the date stands free of arrows. The remnant of the horizontal S sits on the left side of the final upright mintmark and is plain under a loupe, which makes this one of the more approachable repunched mintmarks to attribute. It is catalogued as FS-501, Briggs 4-D and Flynn RPM-001, and carries PCGS numbers 145562 for the FS-501 designation and 5507 for the base S over Horizontal S listing, against 5506 for the plain date. Its standing as the only die variety in the With Motto Seated quarter series to earn a listing in the standard annual U.S. coin reference accounts for much of its following outside specialist circles.

Notable facts

• Experts estimate that 500 or more examples of the variety survive, and circulated pieces are easy to locate, but the variety is well enough known that cherrypicking it is difficult.
• As of May 2018, PCGS had certified only three examples at MS65 with two finer.
• An NGC MS67 realized $25,850 in June 2016, and a PCGS MS67 brought $16,450 that November.
• Recorded sales include roughly $144 at VF25 in 2019, $408 at AU53 in 2021, $900 at MS60 and $1,320 at MS63 in 2018, and about $3,055 at MS65 in 2015.
• The plain 1877-S is common in Mint State with MS64 the most frequently seen grade, and recent sales of the unattributed date have run from about $94 in VF35 to $840 in MS64.