Pleasing light gray surfaces with strong borders. The lower portion of Liberty's bust, from her neck to drapery, has been finely tooled in an attempt to remove stray initials. The workmanship of this repair is extremely high quality and easily missed without careful examination. This remains an extremely important example deserving full attention of the specialist.

This is the single key-date issue among circulation strike quarter dollars of this design type. Only about 20 examples are known to exist in all circulation strike grades plus a single Proof. In his revision of the Browning reference, Walter Breen recorded 21 different examples, although it is certainly possible that some of those are duplicate listings. Only four coins are listed in the JRCS census with just one clearly finer than this.

According to Mint records, 117,800 quarter dollars were coined in 1823. Given the rarity of coins bearing this date, it is almost certain that most of the mintage actually consisted of coins dated 1822, or perhaps even earlier. The obverse die, clearly overdated from an 1822 die, is entirely different from the die used for the previous year's coinage. The reverse die was reworked before being used for 1824 and 1825 quarter dollars.

Perfect dies.

Purchased from Jim McGuigan. Previously from Gerald Schertz.