Here is a coin I really like – it doesn’t look like much at first, but is worth a second glance…
Even though the date is almost completely worn away it’s still an 1800s US silver quarter dollar – it’s pretty cool. Like as not this example was used in Australia, maybe as the equivalent of a shilling.
Arrows (!) and Rays…?
Anyway the eagle side shows rays around the eagle and that was only done with these for one year, 1853 (the date also has an arrow either side, extremely faint on this coin though!). The gory details are “Type 2 – Arrows at Date – Rays Around Eagle (1853)” and it’s in Almost Good 03 on the Sheldon scale (“Readable lettering although very heavily worn. The date and design may be worn smooth”), which is actually a pretty fair summary.
Only one…
Well…, the one in the photos could possibly be the harder to get 1853-O – but we’ll never know because it’s all been worn away at best, and was never there at worst!
Probably best to say it came out of the Philadelphia mint, as by far the vast majority did – and so there was no mintmark, the same system used for the later Morgan dollar.
The previous type of this quarter had the eagle with a plain background. From 1854 up to the early 1890s they went on to produce another half dozen or so other types, but never did another ‘eagle with rays’.
Happy collecting!
pre1946silver.com 