DC-25c-1929D-01 Die Chip

Description

First documented die chip for the 1929 Denver Mint Standing Liberty Quarter, this variety was cataloged by the Cuds on Coins research team with no other known cross-references. Hermon Atkins MacNeil's Standing Liberty Quarter, produced from 1916 to 1930, features a high-relief design with Liberty standing in a gateway and a heraldic eagle in flight on the reverse, and the intricate sculptural detail of this design created numerous points where die stress could concentrate and produce chips. A die chip forms when a small fragment of hardened die steel fractures away from the die face, leaving a void that fills with metal during striking to produce a raised bump on the finished coin. The 1929-D represents the penultimate year of the Standing Liberty Quarter series, which would end in 1930 before being replaced by John Flanagan's Washington Quarter in 1932. Denver struck approximately 1.36 million Standing Liberty Quarters in 1929, a low mintage that makes any die variety from this date and mint relatively scarce simply because fewer coins were produced and fewer dies were consumed. The World War I era design, initially controversial for depicting Liberty with an exposed breast before the Type 2 modification in 1917, was showing its age by 1929 — the recessed date wore quickly in circulation, and the high-relief design required greater striking force that accelerated die deterioration, making die chips and cracks more common than on lower-relief designs.

Attribution History

• Discovered by niinc on ebay
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References