CoinsEarly QuartersCollecting
Collecting pathways
A series of 6.5 million coins with perhaps fifty thousand survivors, no common date, and a market whose top is set by preservation rather than census. Four honest ways in, from three coins to ninety.
Understand the market first
Condition beats rarity — here, and for 160 years
The series record — $1,740,000 — belongs to a Gem 1796, the most-saved coin in early American silver, with an estimated 650 survivors. The rarest circulating coin, the 1823/2 with thirty-three known, has never made half that, because no Uncirculated example exists to make it. This is the opposite of the early dollars, where existence itself sets the top, and it has two practical consequences: a wonderful coin of a common date can cost more than a worn example of a famous rarity — and circulated examples of genuinely rare dates are, by rarity standards, cheap.
The pattern is not new. In 1864 an 1827 quarter brought $227 at auction — a third of what the Mickley 1804 dollar fetched three years later — and in 1915 the hobby press named a collection's summits as "a brilliant proof 1796; one of the best 1823 and a proof of 1827." The three coins the era prized are the three this page still has to warn you about.
Where the money is not
An 1835 in a mid-circulated grade is the honest entry to the whole series: the largest delivery (1,952,000), the deepest survivor pool (5,250 estimated), and the same statutory 92 13/16 grains of silver as the 1796. From there the reduced-size run 1831–1838 completes without drama — it is 71.6% of everything the Mint made.
Start with the 1835 →Four ways in
Pathways
The three-coin type setMODERATE
One Draped Bust (realistically an 1805 or 1806 — the 1796 and 1804 are their own projects), one large-size Capped Bust (1815–1828; the 1818 and 1821 offer the deepest supply), one reduced-size (1831–1838; the 1831 Small Letters is the most obtainable early quarter in high grade, and the 1835 the most obtainable overall). Add the Heraldic Eagle small-eagle distinction and it is a four-coin set with one expensive gate: no Small Eagle quarter exists except the 1796.
The date run, 1815–1838MODERATE
Fifteen dates if you accept the overdates as their dates, with two decisions at the edges: whether the proof-only 1827/3s are in scope, and what to do about the 1823/2, which gates the run at a six-figure entry. Most collectors run 1815–1838 without those three and have a genuinely completable set in which every other coin can be found in collector grades.
The full 32-issue setHIGH
Everything in the checklist: both 1819 digit sizes, both 1820s, both 1831 letterings, both 25/50 C. blunders, the overdate run and the two proof-only 1827/3s (eight and fifteen known). Nobody completes this quickly, and the last three coins are census objects that appear at auction years apart.
Browning varietiesSPECIALIST
Ninety varieties, photographed in 1925, numbered on PCGS holders today. Uniquely on this site, the reference you need is free: the plates are on the varieties page and the book is public domain. The modern revisions (Tompkins 2008; Rea et al. 2010) add marriages and numeric rarities beyond Browning's ninety — say which system a number comes from.
Before you call anything complete
Three decisions this series forces
The proofs
The 1827/3 Original and Restrike exist only as proofs — eight and fifteen known, both six figures. A set that excludes them is not incomplete; it is a set of coins that circulated. Decide which set you are building before the gap bothers you.
The 1823/2
Thirty-three known, none Uncirculated, $69,000 for an XF at the last widely cited sale of one. It gates every date run that includes it. There is no budget version and no shortcut — only the decision to include it or not.
1796 and 1804
The two Draped Bust gates. The 1796 is a condition market (survivors are plentiful for the mintage; Mint State is where the money is); the 1804 is a scarcity market (387 known, and worn examples carry real premiums). They are different purchases and different budgets.
Practical discipline for this series
Certify the keys, learn the rest. Anything at key-date money — the 1823/2, the 25/50 C. coins, the 1796, the 1804, any overdate with a premium — should be bought certified. For the reduced-size dates, the better investment is the free one: the standard reference is public domain on this site, and an afternoon with the plates teaches you to read the dies yourself.
Never buy from the mintage column. This series contains a published mintage that is an outright invention (the 1824/2's 24,000), two that are merges of two calendar years (1796, 1815), one that is a partition of a two-type delivery (1838), and four that are one year's figure printed on two varieties. The honest scarcity input is the survival estimate, dated and attributed — it is on every issue page, next to the record.
Expect the coins to be worn, and respect the wear. These were working coins in an economy short of small change — the Mint's own Directors described leaving that job to "the accustomed fractions of the Spanish dollar," and the federal quarter that did circulate, circulated hard. The series average survival is about 1% of delivery. A pleasant, original mid-grade early quarter is the normal state of the species; Mint State is the exception that the market prices accordingly.
Track it. The 32-issue checklist keeps the record and the trade's figures apart, saves privately in your browser, and knows which rows share a delivery figure.
Store this set
What actually fits an early quarter dollar
27 mm · reduced to 24.3 from 1831
Tube
Not recommended
Too wide for a quarter tube at 27 mm
Second size
1831–1838, after the reduction — 24.3 mm, which takes an Air-Tite A-24.3. One set, two capsules — see that fit.
Measure before you buy. Diameter was never fixed by statute — which is exactly why 1831 could happen. The Mint reduced the quarter and thickened the planchet needing no legislation, passed none, and left no document explaining it. Before 1831 the coins were struck on an open collar and vary; caliper yours rather than trusting a nominal figure.
Derived from the coin's diameter against Air-Tite's published model chart — the full table, the materials grades and the six things that destroy coins are in the Supply Room. Ordered by fit and archival safety, never by commission. Product links are affiliate links; what they pay has no input into what appears here or in what order.
Sources
OBSERVED
57 sources
ESTIMATED
1 source
DERIVED
1 source
Sourced figures on this page trace to the ledger below. Editorial judgement is labelled as ours, and prices we have not sourced are not published.
View all sources & evidence methodology →Continue: key dates & survivalvarieties & the platesthe complete historyyour checklist
Survival estimates and auction records are PCGS CoinFacts' (S30), observed 2026-08-24; period prices are from held public-domain catalogues and periodicals (S10, S13–S15) or PCGS's census fields, attributed as such. OunceDesk publishes no price guide for this series — see methodology.