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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 24675442, member: 13650&quot;]Some of you have posted some really nice thought provoking threads lately so I figured I&#039;d share this interesting bit of info I recently happened upon.&nbsp;&nbsp; I discovered this as a result of a desire to fill the large size CB quarter spot in my US type.&nbsp; &nbsp; For the small size I went with the first year so I took a look at the first year of the large size.&nbsp;&nbsp; And there it was all by itself....</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; So I dug a little deeper.&nbsp;&nbsp; The last year of quarter dollar production was 1807 draped busts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then there were <b>no quarters for 8 years!</b>&nbsp;&nbsp; Naturally the War of 1812 played some part as it went on for roughly 3 years, ending in early 1815.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Then I looked up the mintage of 1815 quarters.&nbsp; &nbsp; The capped bust design was rolled out for quarters for the first time and 89,235 were minted using a single known die pair.&nbsp;&nbsp; (Estimated less than 1900 of them still in existence.)&nbsp;&nbsp; Then they wouldn&#039;t make anymore for 3 more years.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Apparently there was correspondence from Bailly Blanchard who was the head cashier of the Planters Bank of New Orleans, and mint director Robert L Patterson at the time with Blanchard pleading with Patterson to return only quarter dollars in exchange for the banks deposit of silver.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; After much hesitation, since no quarter dollar dies were available, Patterson gave into Blanchards request and production of the quarter dollar denom. was resumed.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; It really makes you wonder how much of the mintage was from that New Orleans bank silver and how many got sent back there.&nbsp; Maybe all of it?&nbsp;&nbsp; Why wouldn&#039;t they mint 90k?&nbsp; &nbsp; The silver they had on hand must have run out.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Out of curiousity, I decided to look into what DID the mint in Philadelphia produce in 1815.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Well, they produced 69,232 quarters.&nbsp; (20,003 more 1815s would be produced the following year in 1816, or at least reported that year if made in 1815)&nbsp;&nbsp; And&nbsp; 635 gold half eagles (11 known in existence).&nbsp;&nbsp; Production ramped up at the end of the year of 1815, producing over 300k large cents.&nbsp;&nbsp; But there are no large cents dated 1815.&nbsp;&nbsp; The 47,150 half dollars dated 1815, were made at the end of the year and reported on the 1816 report.&nbsp; &nbsp; All in all a very slow year.&nbsp; &nbsp; Reasons stated by the official report was lack of bullion and shortage of copper planchets which had been being procured from England up to that point.&nbsp;&nbsp; New ones wouldn&#039;t have been coming in during the conflict after the trade embargo went into effect.&nbsp; The mint&#039;s supply of copper planchets was exhausted in 1814.&nbsp;&nbsp; And few were sending their bullion in to be converted to coins, likely due to the worry of it being confiscated if the U.S. lost the war.&nbsp; People were hoarding what they had and hiding it away.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; From what I understand on the unknown large cents produced, its possible they could have begun making the 1816s with the new matron head design but most feel they didn&#039;t have the dies ready for use on those either.&nbsp; So it&#039;s more likely that they made more of the 1814s using the old dies and inflating their official mintage number.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Hopefully you found this as interesting as I did.&nbsp; If anyone has more to add about it, feel free to expand.&nbsp; &nbsp; This is an example I recently picked up for the type set spot.&nbsp;&nbsp; An honest VG-8 by PCGS.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1573937[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Edit: Updated to reflect accurate figures based off of the actual mint ledgers.</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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