It was probably the result of a grease-filled die. Note that the "E" of IGWT, and to some extent, the second "A" of AMERICA are also weak. The second "T" of TRUST is almost completely gone. There really isn't much premium attached to this kind of error as it is pretty common. Chris
For some reason different issues seem to have grease fill a specific area of the coin. For example on the DE quarter the last E in the word STATE frequently fills and disappears. On the CT quarter the the ER OA of CHARTER OAK tends to vanish. On the bicentennial half the last E in INDEPENDENCE is often missing. On the NH quarter for some reason the part of the design that seems to attract the grease is the mintmark. It doesn't disappear on other issues but there have been MANY reports of missing mintmarks on the NH quarter.
Makes sense, thanks for the great responses i thought this might be the issue but it never hurts to ask the experts.