Lot 2736
1822. 25 Over 50¢. NGC graded VG-8. Very rare variety. Normal wear for the grade, pleasing two-tone antique color, with lighter rubbed silver highlights against the deeper netural dark gray of the fields. We note an old scratch in the left obverse field, and another scuff in the left wing of the eagle on the reverse. An attractive specimen, and one of the rarest Browning varieties in this short-lived series.
John Reich brought Europe to America. He entered into service at the Philadelphia Mint in 1807. His obverse design for the remodeled large-sized Capped Bust Quarters of 1815-28 shows Liberty facing left, surrounded by thirteen stars, with the date below the bust. Liberty is quite buxom and, though characterized in the press as looking like "the artist's fat mistress," she is probably representative in appearance of the typical woman that Reich would have seen in Europe. Contrary to the opinions of some students of United States coinage, she is not wearing a Phrygian liberty cap but simply a mob cap, with a band inscribed LIBERTY. Many took issue with the idea that Liberty would be adorned with a cap given to freed slaves, but even President Thomas Jefferson saw this headdress, with its high cap bearing frills and ribbons, as familiar wearing apparel of women during this time. The bucolic Liberty was quite different than the stern, no-nonsense look of Robert Scot's preceding Draped Bust design.
The reverse shows an eagle with outstretched wings perched on a branch and holding three arrows, the Union Shield on its breast and the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM ("One made up of many") on a scroll above the eagle. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and value 25 C appear around the border. The eagle is more domesticated and peaceful looking than the aggressive Heraldic Eagle of the 1804-1807 design and more robust than the puny eagle on the 1796 quarter.
The Reich design would follow the policy established by the first director of the Mint, David Rittenhouse, that one design would be used on all coins of the same metal. It was first rendered on the half dollar of 1807, the dime of 1809 and finally the quarter dollar in 1815.
There were no quarters minted from 1808 to 1814, primarily because there was little demand for them. Early quarters were victims of Gresham's Law. This economic axiom dictates that if two competing currencies exist side by side, the least valuable will be spent and the other will be kept. In other words, "bad" money drives out "good." The competing Spanish two-reales coins were legal tender at par with the heavier quarter, so the quarter coin was either hoarded or melted for its silver content. The usually well worn Spanish coins satisfied the needs of commerce, so there was not much need or motivation to make large mintages of United States coins.
Estimated Value $6,000 - 7,000.
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