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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Publius2, post: 26547243, member: 105571&quot;]Stands for (Ard W.) B(rowning, an early, if maybe not the earliest, attempt to identify the Bust Quarters by die marriage.&nbsp; The B number refers to a specific marriage of a unique obverse die with a unique reverse die.&nbsp; For example, your 1832 B-2 is composed of Obverse Die 1 and Reverse Die E.&nbsp; The Browning number is still used today, many decades after it was first introduced.</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;R&quot; number refers to the Sheldon rarity scale.&nbsp; An awkward but pretty universally referenced rarity scale.&nbsp; It starts at R-1 (&quot;Common&quot;), more than 1251 known and goes to R-8, (&quot;Unique&quot; or &quot;Nearly Unique&quot;), 1 to 3 known.&nbsp; Later numismatists have included an R-9 to mean completely unique, as in only one known, although people differ in their usage and terminology for R-9.In between R-1 and R-8, your B-2, R-2 has a rarity sometimes referred to as &quot;Uncommon&quot;, meaning 501 to 1250 known.&nbsp; Note that rarity has nothing to do with the number minted, it is strictly the number known to exist today.&nbsp; For R-1, I&#039;ve referenced the definition used in Tompkins, not the original Sheldon value of 1000.&nbsp; For R-2 I&#039;ve referenced Tompkins nomenclature.&nbsp; Sheldon calls is &quot;Fairly Common&quot;.&nbsp; Pick your poison, they all mean about the same thing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Generally speaking, any coin that is R-4 or more common should not demand a premium although there are exceptions.&nbsp; You need to be a specialist in order to know what&#039;s what.&nbsp; Two coins with the same grade and the same B number might have wildly different values in the marketplace because of die state, cuds, or other factors unique to specialty collectors.</p><p><br /></p><p>Probably the most used reference for bust quarters is <i>Early United States Quarters, 1796-1838</i> by Steve M. Tompkins, c2008.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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