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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 1975619, member: 46237&quot;]I&#039;ve been focusing my serious collecting on small capped bust quarters (by die marriage) for the last couple of years. From what I&#039;ve seen available at shows, LCS, and internet auction sites, I&#039;ve felt for some time an apparent (and significant) disparity between the distribution of surviving dates and the reported mintage numbers for the years 1834 and 1835. I feel that, as with half dollars, a substantial amount of 1834 quarter dollars were minted in 1835 and reported with the 1835 mintage numbers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are the reported mintage numbers for small capped bust quarters:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><ul> <li>1831 - 398,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1832 - 320,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1833 - 156,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1834 - 286,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1835 - 1,952,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1836 - 472,000</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1837 - 252,400</li> </ul><p> <ul> <li>1838 - 366,000</li> </ul></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>According to these numbers, 1834 is the third lowest mintage year, but my gut feeling has always been that 1834 had a slightly higher representation than 1835 in surviving coinage, and was the most represented date. Other dates of comparable mintage like 1837 and 1832 seem <i>much</i> scarcer than 1834 by comparison.</p><p><br /></p><p>Out of curiosity, I aggregated the major TPG population reports for small capped bust quarters in collector grades (40+) and compared them to the mintage numbers. Here is what I found:</p><ul> <li>1831<ul> <li><b>9.47%</b> of total minted</li> <li><b>23.57%</b> of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1832<ul> <li>7.61% of total minted</li> <li>6.00% of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1833<ul> <li>3.71% of total minted</li> <li>6.64% of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1834<ul> <li><b>6.81%</b> of total minted</li> <li><b>21.60%</b> of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1835<ul> <li><b>46.45%</b> of total minted</li> <li><b>17.78%</b> of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1836<ul> <li>11.23% of total minted</li> <li>5.80% of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1837<ul> <li>6.01% of total minted</li> <li>9.50% of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> <li>1838<ul> <li>8.71% of total minted</li> <li>9.12% of TPG pop</li> </ul></li> </ul><p>So let&#039;s look at these results. First, 1831 looks way off with 23.57% of the TPG pop but only 9.47% of the total mintage for small capped bust quarters. This discrepancy is explainable when you take into account hoarding due to 1831 being the first year for small CBQs (and after a several year hiatus since the large CBQs were struck). Also, 1831 is the only year in this series with universally accepted major varieties (small and large letters). These factors have likely led to more coins of this date being preserved in higher grades, as well as being a driving force for increased TPG submissions. Also, while the number of collector grade 1831s is significantly higher than expected in the pop reports, my feeling from observing raw coins is that in the lower grades, 1831s are not this well represented overall, while 1834 and 1835 are represented in similarly high percentages across all grades.</p><p><br /></p><p>The percentage of total mintage to percentage of TPG population for the other dates seem reasonably in line with each other except for 1834-1835, and to a much smaller extent, 1836. Quarters dated 1834 came in at 21.60% of the population (over three times the expected amount!), and slightly over the 17.78% for 1835, which matched exactly with my gut feeling regarding the relative representation of these dates.</p><p><br /></p><p>In pursuing this topic further, I discovered <i>Early United States Quarters</i> by Steve M. Tompkins, in which he conjectures that based on the die wear progression between shared dies, the scarce 1834 B-3 die marriage must have been struck <i>after</i> the 1835 B-1 die marriage, and that likewise the rare die marriage 1834 B-5 may have been struck in 1835. I suppose aside from these shared die wear progression comparisons there is no good way to tell for sure how many of other more common marriages of CBQs dated 1834 were actually struck and reported in 1835, but based on the distribution of surviving dates, it may have been a highly significant amount.</p><p><br /></p><p>What is curious to me is the size of the discrepancy for 1836. It&#039;s not anywhere close to the discrepancy seen for 1834 and 1835, but it is larger than expected. I wouldn&#039;t be surprised if the off-year minting overlap was actually between 1834, 1835, and 1836 considering these were significant transition years at the mint.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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