2013 Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-016

Description

Attributed by the Wexler Team and cross-referenced as Wexler Variety ID: 2013-P 25¢ MD WDDR-016, this doubled die reverse appears on the 2013-P Fort McHenry National Park quarter from the America the Beautiful series. Fort McHenry, located in Baltimore harbor, is best known as the site of the 1814 British bombardment that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the reverse design by Joseph Menna depicts the fort's distinctive star-shaped ramparts with a flag flying above. The sixteenth cataloged DDR for this design-date-mint combination indicates sustained research interest in the ATB quarter series, where the annually changing reverse designs provide fresh diagnostic geometry for each new issue. Hub doubling on quarter reverses tends to be more readily visible than on smaller denominations because the larger planchet diameter allows design elements to be rendered at greater scale, making secondary displacement easier to detect under magnification. The ATB program, running from 2010 through 2021, produced five unique reverse designs per year across multiple mint facilities, creating an expansive field for variety research. Philadelphia struck the business-strike version of the 2013 Fort McHenry quarter in quantities sufficient for general circulation, and finding WDDR-016 requires systematic examination of the reverse design elements for the characteristic displacement pattern documented in the Wexler catalog.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 2013-P 25¢ MD WDDR-016
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References