Original Standing Liberty quarter design - 1916 1 1

[RWB]

This post on another message board is certain to confuse and mislead newer collectors. https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1075302/the-original-1916-quarter

The statement in that post is entirely false.

The obverse design pictured was MacNeil's final design and the one actually approved for use by Secretary of the Treasury in late August 1916.

The Mint director stuck with a modification of the original (May 1916), then Morgan revised it for the initial 1917 coins. MacNeil objected and was allowed to revise his design to the one known as "Type II." (The photo is one I took while authenticating the bronze cast in 2008.)

The reverse pictured on the false post dates from 1917 and was one of MacNeil's proposed modifications to the star arrangement. It has no connection whatsoever to the dolphin obverse, It was never used.

[See Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921 for facts.]

Edited May 9, 2022 by RWB

[RWB]

Could someone here post on the thread ATS and correct things before it gets too far out of hand?

[FlyingAl]

Posted ATS, hope that helps. If you have any other info regarding the reverse pictured in particular and the 1917 revisions, I think that would be great to hear.

[RWB]

Thanks for posting the correction. The thread seemed to be growing with no one correcting the original errors.

There is another version of the reverse with a different star arrangement, plus the one finally used in later 1917. There isn't much more information about these ----

[FlyingAl]

No problem, I would have commented sooner but the errors just didn’t seem egregious enough until I noticed the reverse didn’t match. 
 

Where were these molds discovered? It seems that almost no information exists, and so I wonder who cared for them over the years.

[RWB]

FlyingAl - you might want to be more explicit with correcting the ATS post,,,, that is, specifically tell them the dolphin design was not the first. The first one looked a lot like the 1916 coins.

The casts were found a a yard sale in New Jersey. Look up the auction descriptions from Heritage and Stack's-Bowers -- I wrote most of them.

[FlyingAl]

Roger,

Done, edited my post. I’ll go find those auction listings!

Edit: found the listing at HA and posted it ATS, it’s the best way to share that information I think, and there’s lots of it!

Edited May 10, 2022 by FlyingAl

[Zebo]

Interesting design. 

[RWB]

On 5/10/2022 at 6:48 AM, Zebo said:

Interesting design. 

MacNeil had identified several defects in his original (including a bow-legged Liberty) and wanted to correct them at no extra cost. The Sec of Treasury approved, but the Director of the Mint did nothing with the new casts, and kept the Philadelphia Engraving department working on the original version. 52,000 of the original made in December 1916 were merely a token coinage so that Treasury could say they got all three new coin into circulation in that year, as promised. (The original target date was July 1.)

[VKurtB]

On 5/12/2022 at 11:09 AM, RWB said:

MacNeil had identified several defects in his original (including a bow-legged Liberty) and wanted to correct them at no extra cost. The Sec of Treasury approved, but the Director of the Mint did nothing with the new casts, and kept the Philadelphia Engraving department working on the original version. 52,000 of the original made in December 1916 were merely a token coinage so that Treasury could say they got all three new coin into circulation in that year, as promised. (The original target date was July 1.)

Liberty got bowlegged from too much porpoise riding.