Indian Head Quarter Eagle Dates & Mintmarks
All 15 issues of the $2.50 series, 1908 through 1929, in Bela Lyon Pratt's incuse design. Struck at Philadelphia and Denver only; San Francisco never made the denomination in this design. No quarter eagles at all were struck between 1916 and 1924.
No prices, price guides, or population counts appear anywhere in this catalog. Coin Curator does not hold licensed data for any of those, so it publishes none. How we work.
15
Date/mint combinations
15
Key dates
under 750k struck
0
Semi-keys
under 2.5M struck
2
Mints
P, D
| Date | Mint | Mintage | Rank | Tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1908-P | Philadelphia | 564,821 | 10 | Key date | 1 documented variety · 236 proofs |
| 1909-P | Philadelphia | 441,760 | 5 | Key date | 139 proofs |
| 1910-P | Philadelphia | 492,000 | 8 | Key date | 682 proofs |
| 1911-D | Denver | 55,680 | 1 | Key date | 1 documented variety |
| 1911-P | Philadelphia | 704,000 | 14 | Key date | 191 proofs |
| 1912-P | Philadelphia | 616,000 | 13 | Key date | 197 proofs |
| 1913-P | Philadelphia | 722,000 | 15 | Key date | 165 proofs |
| 1914-D | Denver | 448,000 | 7 | Key date | — |
| 1914-P | Philadelphia | 240,000 | 2 | Key date | 117 proofs |
| 1915-P | Philadelphia | 606,000 | 12 | Key date | 100 proofs |
| 1925-D | Denver | 578,000 | 11 | Key date | — |
| 1926-P | Philadelphia | 446,000 | 6 | Key date | — |
| 1927-P | Philadelphia | 388,000 | 3 | Key date | — |
| 1928-P | Philadelphia | 416,000 | 4 | Key date | — |
| 1929-P | Philadelphia | 532,000 | 9 | Key date | — |
Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Tiers are assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date, under 2,500,000 a semi-key. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site, so tiers are comparable between them. That is a production measure, not a market judgement, and not a statement about how many survive.
Shopping the series
Individual date pages open a search for that exact date and mint. This one covers the series. Verify every listing, seller, and return policy directly.
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Common questions
How many Indian Head quarter eagle dates and mintmarks are there?
15: 12 from Philadelphia and 3 from Denver. San Francisco never struck the denomination in this design, which makes it the only series catalogued here with no San Francisco issues at all. None were struck between 1916 and 1924, so the series divides into an early run of 1908 to 1915 and a short late one of 1925 to 1929.
Why is every issue marked as a key date?
Every issue in this series is labelled a key date, and that tells you nothing. Coin Curator assigns tiers from mintage alone, using the same thresholds everywhere so they stay comparable: under 750,000 struck is a key date. The largest quarter eagle mintage of the whole series is 722,000, so all fifteen clear the bar. The thresholds sit where they do because most of the site catalogues silver, and gold was struck in far smaller numbers. Read the mintage figures and the notes on each date rather than the tier badge, which in this series is a constant.
What does incuse mean, and why does it matter when buying?
The devices on this coin are sunk into the surface rather than raised above it, which is unique to the Indian Head quarter eagle and half eagle among regular United States coins. Two consequences follow for a buyer. The fields, not the design, are the highest surface, so they take the wear and show marks that a raised design would hide, and the usual visual cues for grade do not transfer from other series. And the recessed design gives a counterfeiter more room to work undetected, which is part of why this denomination is among the more heavily faked in U.S. gold. On the scarce dates the certification record is doing more work here than usual.
Which is the key date?
The 1911-D at 55,680, by a wide margin: the next lowest issue in the series is more than four times as large. It was the only Denver quarter eagle before 1914 and the coins circulated. It is also the date the series is counterfeited for, usually by adding a D to a Philadelphia coin, and the mintmark exists in genuinely weak and strong forms that are easily confused with a tooled one.
Is it true the design was thought to spread disease?
That objection was made at the time, on the grounds that the recessed design would collect dirt and harbour germs. It did not survive contact with evidence, but it was widely repeated and followed the series for years. It is worth knowing mainly because it is still repeated today as though it were the reason the design was abandoned, which it was not.
Does Coin Curator publish Indian Head quarter eagle values?
No. This catalog carries U.S. Mint production figures, historical context, and documented varieties. It does not publish prices, valuations, price guides, or population and census counts, because Coin Curator does not hold licensed data for any of those. That matters more on a gold series than on any other, since these coins carry both a bullion value and a numismatic one and neither is published here. Pages link to the grading services' own certification lookups and to marketplace searches so you can check current evidence yourself.
Mintage 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, Indian Head quarter eagle mintages — Business strikes and proofs listed separately. Used as the business-strike figures here.
- USA Coin Book, Indian Head quarter eagle — Independent table. Agrees on every Denver issue; its Philadelphia figures add that year's proofs into the total.
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