I have no idea how to identify 1973 large busts from the normal variety.Here are six of them ( all 1973 RCMP Canadian Quarters ) Are any large bust's? Sorry about the quality, I had to turn it down.
The pictures really are not clear enough to say with any certainty. Keep in mind there are only about 10,000 of the large dates. Ken Potter is the one that found this variety, I looked at his site and couldn't find any information regarding them. I did find however two very nice pictures of the two at http://ashrap.com/ On the right click on varieties, go to quarters and scroll down. Hope this helps.
If you don't want to measure the bust height, the easiest way to identify the two is the distance of beads from the rim. In small bust variety, the beads are little far from the rim while in large bust variety, they are closer to the rim. All ones you posted looks like small bust variety quarters. Regards, Ballabh Garg
Hi -- I just make a large scan then in Photoshop count the denticles (so I use the paint brush to check off every 10 as you see in my attached image) so I can keep track. Very easy to do with a large scan! Small Bust variety has 120 denticles where as the Large Bust variety has 132.