1897-S Barber Quarter
Key dateA low-mintage San Francisco issue and one of the better dates of the Barber quarter series.
Mintage
- Business strikes
- 542,229
- Mint
- San Francisco (S)
- Mintage rank
- 6 of 74
Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives. These circulated as money for decades, and enormous numbers of pre-1965 silver coins were melted once the metal rose above face value, none of it recorded by date.
Reading the figure
Among the 21 San Francisco issues in the series it is the 5th smallest. Of the 10,097,029 struck across all mints in 1897, this issue accounts for 5%. Philadelphia struck 15 times as many that year. The 1897 split ran Philadelphia 8,140,000, New Orleans 1,414,800 and San Francisco 542,229. The series median is 2,648,821, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date. Series-wide output rose sharply that year: 10,097,029 against 5,546,039 in 1896.
Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.
Scarcity tier
Key date
Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.
This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.
Recent sold prices
Last checked Sep 14, 2026 · most recent sale Aug 9, 2026What certified 1897-S Barber quarters actually sold for on eBay in the last 90 days, grouped by grade band. Every figure below is a completed sale of a PCGS, NGC or ANACS coin in a straight grade. This is a record of what changed hands, not a price guide, an appraisal, or a prediction of what yours is worth.
Good to Fine
PO1 to F15$96
Median of 6 sales
- Lowest
- $56
- Highest
- $120
The 4 most recent sales
- $70PCGS G4 · Aug 9, 20261897 S 25c Barber Quarter PCGS G4 Nice !!
- $93ANACS G4 · Aug 1, 20261897-S Semi-Key Date Barber Quarter ANACS G 4
- $100PCGS G4 · Jul 19, 20261897 S PCGS G4 - Silver Barber Quarter 25C US Coin #54862B
- $56NGC AG3 · Jul 16, 20261897-S Barber Quarter NGC AG3 - Key Date Rare
Seller titles, verbatim. An ended eBay listing stays readable for about 90 days, so older links will expire.
How to read these
- The median is the middle sale after removing outliers. The range is every sale kept, including the outliers, so you can see how wide the market actually is.
- Grade drives most of the difference. A band with three sales tells you far less than a band with thirty, and the count is shown so you can weigh it.
- Sales of coins in “Details”, “Genuine” or cleaned holders are excluded, as are proofs, replicas, lots, and mounted coins. Those sell at prices that would not describe the coin on this page.
- So is any sale priced below what this same date fetches in a lower grade, which is impossible for a real coin and is how a counterfeit in a convincing holder gives itself away.
- 1 further qualifying sale fell in a grade band with fewer than 3 sales, which is too few to report a median from, so it is not shown.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and holds no licensed price guide or population data. How this data is collected.
What to check before buying
Nothing about this date calls for a check beyond the ones that apply to any certified coin.
And for any certified coin
Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and holds no licensed price guide or population data. Where this page shows recent sold prices, they are records of completed eBay sales, not a valuation of any particular coin. These are verification steps, not an appraisal.
Verify a certification number
Look a 1897-S certification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.
Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.
Find a 1897-S for sale
Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or set prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.
Affiliate link: Coin Curator may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Disclosure.
Common questions
How many 1897-S Barber quarters were minted?
The San Francisco Mint struck 542,229 1897-S Barber quarters for circulation. That is the 6th lowest business-strike mintage of the 74 date and mintmark combinations in the series.
Is the 1897-S Barber quarter a key date?
Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. A low-mintage San Francisco issue and one of the better dates of the Barber quarter series.
What should I check before buying an 1897-S Barber quarter?
Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue.
Related dates
Guides for this coin
All guides →Barber Coinage: Collecting Dimes, Quarters & Halves
One Liberty-head design across three denominations (1892-1916). Affordable Victorian-era silver as a type set, plus legendary keys like the 1894-S dime and the 1901-S quarter.
1 min readPractical GuideBuilding a US Type Set
Build a U.S. type set by defining the included designs, grade targets, verification rules, and a current coin-by-coin budget.
2 min readEducationWhat Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value
Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.
1 min readBuying GuideApproachable Key-Date Coins to Research First
Seven dates that teach scarcity, identification, grade tradeoffs, and counterfeit-aware buying, without promising a fixed price or resale result.
1 min readMintage sources
Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-08-02. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.
- CoinMintages.com, Barber Quarter mintages — Business strikes and proofs listed separately. Used as the business-strike figures here.
- LandOfCoins, Barber Quarter mintage — Independent table with proofs in their own column. Agrees with the above on every issue.
- USA Coin Book, Barber Quarter — Third table, whose Philadelphia figures add that year's proofs into the total. Used to confirm the convention rather than as a primary source.
Spotted an error? Submit a correction.