1918 Walking Liberty Quarter Dollar, Type 2 (2)

1918 Walking Liberty Quarter Dollar, Type 2 (2)

Standing Liberty Quarters (1916-1930)
Mint: Philadelphia
Mintage: 14,240,000
Obverse Designer: Hermon A. MacNeil
Reverse Designer: Hermon A. MacNeil
Composition: Silver
Fineness: 0.9000
Weight: 6.2500g
ASW: 0.1808oz
Melt Value: $4.57 (4/7/2021)
Diameter: 24.3mm
Edge: Reeded

With the nation fully engaged in World War I, the economy was booming, and the need for fresh coin was very heavy in 1918. The Philadelphia Mint quarter dollar of this date thus enjoyed the second highest mintage of the entire Standing Liberty series. Coins that have good overall strikes are fairly available, though many have weak dates, and precious few of these feature the coveted Full Head. Cline put the proportion at just 5% of the total, though expressing it as the percentage struck with FH, something we cannot know for certain. His figure, however, is accurate for the percentage of FH coins among MS examples surviving.

The attrition rate for 1918(P) quarters that entered circulation was extremely heavy, and it's likely that many of the now-dateless Philadelphia Mint SLQs in the marketplace once bore the date 1918.