Collecting the Standing Liberty Quarter – Part One

Hermon A. MacNeil’s Standing Liberty Quarter is a rare Masterpiece.  Issued by the U.S. Mint over a century ago, it no longer circulates in the market place.

“M” The modest signature allowed for H.A. MacNeil

As a child in the early 1950’s, my mother, Ollie Frances McNeil, showed me the image of Lady Liberty on MacNeil’s design.  She pointed our the distinctive “M” on the base of the obverse.

“That stands for ‘McNeil'” she told me.  “Hermon was your great uncle on my side of the family.”    Mom was very proud of her McNeil lineage and she intentionally passed a good portion of that pride on to me as a child.  Giving me the middle name of “Neil” remains a continual reminder of that fact.

A yellowed copy of a 1916 newspaper clipping declares: “Herman Atkins MacNeil, Designer of the New Quarter”

Hermon died on October 2, 1947 at his home in College Point, Queens, NY after a long illness. I have no memory of that as an event or of that time in our family.  (I was just a child — 2 years, 3 months and 2 days old.)

In the early 1950’s, I remember handling “Standing Liberty Quarters” in the change we received from my brother’s Saturday night newspaper corner in East Saint Louis.  (We hawked three papers at 38th and St. Clair Avenue, yelling “Pap-er-ers! Post, Globe, and Journal.)

The yellowed news clipping at the right is from the estate of Walter Pratt, Hermon’s first cousin from Massachusetts.  The Pratt’s saved this clipping of Hermon from the newspaper. 

The photo shows Hermon sculpting the enlarged design for the “Standing Liberty Quarter.”  (Jim Haas chose this photo for his book cover.)  I purchased this clipping with other MacNeil memorabilia  from the family estate sale in 2018. (See posting of Dec 26, 2018  https://hermonatkinsmacneil.com/2018/12/26/etching-of-carol-louise-brooke-macneil/ )

The Liberty Standing Quarter was no longer minted after 1930, but it remained in circulation for many years.  Until the hoarding of silver coins in the 1960 and the minting of silver clad quarters in 1965

Advent of Copper Clad coinage:

“The United States first began minting copper-nickel clad coins in 1965. That was after several years of rising silver prices and a severe coin shortage that the U.S. Mint partly blamed on people hoarding silver coins from circulation. The dime and quarter were first struck in copper-nickel clad in 1965.” [From https://coins.thefuntimesguide.com/clad_coins/  accessed on 3-4-2020]

Edward A. Van Orden

Edward Van Orden’s recent article on Collecting the SLQ has been referenced in a previous posting on March 5, 2020. I posted the first part of his article in that post. He has a excellent suggestions for collecting SLQs on a sensible budget.  Read the last part of his article at this link:

SLQ Article: The Numismatist Sept ‘19

Bibliography from Edward A. Van Orden’s article:

SOURCES: