I have seen some mention of 1973 quarters with a 1972 reverse and 1974 quarters with '72 or '73 reverses. I think I could tell a '72 reverse, but does anyone have any pictures that show the differences between '73 and '74 reverses? Have fun.
The difference between the '73 and '74 reverse is very subtle and will appeal only to a specialist. On the '74 there are a series of little chicken scratches between the eagle's legs. It's possible this was done to stabilize the planchet before being struck to reduce some types of mechanical doubling but this is mere conjecture. The change is too subtle to have anything to do with artistic considerations. The reverse of '72 coin is quite dramatic though. Most moderns with previous year reverses, I believe, are caused by the technician neglecting to change both dies at the beginning of the year. If the reverse die is in good condition he might either believe it was just changed or that it doesn't need to be changed since the new die is the "same". There are likely some people changing dies at the beginning of the year who aren't normally doing this job.
The die shop would have been pretty busy in 1974 ramping up production and working on new dies and die changes for the steel, aluminum and bronze cents. Perhaps there just weren't enough reverse qurter dies and rather than wait they scrounged up dies. I doubt the '72 die actually went into production since mintage was so low. Perhaps they set the die and then realized it was two years old and removed it or just ran it briefly before it was noticed. I doubt the mintage was over 10 or 15,000 or I'd have seen more. It's likely there are a lot more of these types of coins out there unreported and some might never be discovered.
Cladking, thanks for the input. I have probably read everything you have ever posted on clad quarters. It's the subtleties of die varieties that fascinate me (I'm also working on the type-d's). I have a pretty good handle on the difference between '73 and '74 on the one hand and the earlier dies on the other hand. I have noticed that there is a very fine line right at the bend along the inside of the eagle's right (our left) wing on the '73 & '74. But try as I might, I can't seem to pick out the chicken scratches you mention (I saw that marker mentioned, probably by you, a year or so ago and have looked at several hundred quarters since). That's why I was hoping for pictures. I just got a 40X dissecting microscope - maybe now I can find the difference.
Cladking, I thought maybe I could spot the difference between the '73 and '74 quarter reverses better if I focused on proofs which should have more consistent strikes. However, that assumes that the proof dies as well the business strike dies differ between '73 and '74. Any idea if that is a safe assumption? BTW, thanks for sharing your expertise. I really appreciate it.
Shoot. Let me get back to you on this. I have only one specimen of each at hand and one appears to be non-standard (poorly struck). It doesn't look like my mental image of it. These are hard to spot since the difference is subtle.
Well, it took a while to find enough examples of the '73 and '74 reverses to make a good sample but I'm not sure what I was looking at when I found the '74 with a reverse I believed was a '73. It was a long time ago. The '73 does seem to have a smoother area between the eagle's legs but this is largely striking characteristics rather than design. Both often have two sets of nearly vertical lines with the set on the left composed of two lines and the one on the right of four. Until I find the coin (or another specimen) I'm going to stop reporting this coin. The difference was very subtle and it's possible I'm altogether mistaken on this.
Cladking, thanks for the update. I have looked at several hundred '73s and '74s and could never find any consistent differences. Do you still think there are '73s and '74s with '72 reverses? I've been lucky enough to snag about 70% of the early clad reverses, although the type "c" (RDV-003) is a tough one for '65 - '67. On the up side, I did manage to find a type "c" 1964D. On the down side, I still have not gotten any of the denver RDV-008s for '69 - '72.
After my experience yesterday I'm not nearly so confident that the '73 reverse exists on the '74. Of course, these were just a couple rolls so only seven or eight reverses were involved and I looked at a lot more than that at the time I thought I had one. These might show up only on early die state.
