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Coins/ Quarters / Early Quarters/ 1796

FINENESS .8924ASW 0.19336 OZT6.74 G

Overview History Varieties Key Dates Collecting Checklist References

Issue RecordKEY DATEPhiladelphia89.24% Silver1 of 32 issues

1796 Draped Bust, Small Eagle Quarter

A one-year type with no statement of value anywhere on it, and the most-saved coin in early US silver: of roughly 6,100 pieces attributed to the date, PCGS estimates 650 survive and 90 of them in Mint State — about 10.6% overall, with 14% of survivors Uncirculated, rates nothing else in the series approaches. It was saved as a novelty from the day it appeared, and Browning supplies the mechanism: "Specimen coins or proofs, were apparently struck from this reverse with both obverses." A Gem sold for $1,740,000 in January 2022 — the series record. Set it against the 1823/2 and the whole market logic of this series is on one page: here, condition beats rarity.

1796 · Draped Bust, Small Eagle Quarter

1796Photography pending

The numbers, and what kind of numbers they are

Every figure carries its evidence class. Press a class to open the record behind it — what it rests on, by what method, and what the series says you should not conclude from it.

RECORDED DELIVERY

5,894

The Mint recorded what the Chief Coiner DELIVERED in a calendar year, not what it struck bearing a date. Where the registry combines years, the split is a reconstruction and the class says so.

DATED ATTRIBUTION

6,146

What the trade assigns to coins bearing this date. A modern allocation by an outside authority, not a federal record.

ESTIMATED SURVIVORS

650

An estimate of how many still exist in any grade, not a count of coins anyone has seen. Every issue in this series carries one, which is not true of any other series here.

DIE MARRIAGES

How many obverse/reverse die pairings are catalogued for this issue. A marriage is a distinct pair of hand-cut dies, which is what makes these coins collectable by variety rather than by date alone.

What the record asserts

The figures above are measurements. This is the proposition they support, in the Archive's own claim vocabulary — a different scale from the figure classes, because a claim can be probable where the number behind it is exact.

CLAIMThe published 1796 quarter-dollar mintage of 6,146 is the sum of two separate Mint delivery periods - 5,894 for the period ending 29 November 1796 and 252 for the period ending December 1797 - and no quarter dollar dated 1797 is known.

STATUSCONFIRMED — the Archive's assessment of the proposition, not of the arithmetic.

CLAIM IDearly-quarters-1796-mintage-merges-1797-delivery

Specifications

SpecificationValue

DENOMINATIONQuarter

DESIGNERRobert Scot (Draped Bust obverse, Small Eagle and Heraldic Eagle reverses) · John Reich (Capped Bust)

COMPOSITION89.24% silver, 10.76% copper — 92 13/16 grains of pure silver in 104 grains of standard silver

WEIGHT6.74 g

SILVER CONTENT0.19336 ozt

DIAMETERNot fixed by statute — which is the point of 1831. The Act of April 2, 1792 specifies weight and fineness and says nothing about diameter, so when the Mint reduced the quarter's diameter and thickened the planchet in 1831 it needed no legislation, passed none, and left no document explaining the decision.

EDGEReeded

MINTPhiladelphia only — the branch mints opened in 1838 and the first branch-mint quarter is the 1840-O

MINT MARKNone. No early quarter carries a mint mark.

DIE MARRIAGES2 (B-1 "Low 6", B-2) — one reverse die serving both

The primary record

Every document behind the figures above. Where OunceDesk holds a copy, the row opens it.

Cumulative statement of coinage to 31 December 1805
Held in the Archive · behind recorded delivery

PCGS CoinFacts — Draped Bust and Capped Bust quarter categories and ~30 major-variety pages
External authority — not held by OunceDesk · behind dated attribution

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Hard Money. Hard Numbers. · Not investment advice. Some links pay us a commission — disclosures. Affiliate economics never determine research conclusions or rankings. © 2026 OunceDesk. Every figure classed OBSERVED / DERIVED / ESTIMATED / SPECULATIVE.