Standing Liberty Quarter
The Standing Liberty Quarter was conceived at a time when World War I was raging in Europe and America wanted to show that it was prepared to fight for freedom and its hope for peace. Tired of the rather Mundane Barber coins after 25 years in circulation, it was decide it was time for new 
coinage designs and so a competition was held. Hermon Atkins MacNeil won the competition and was assigned the task of creating a new design for the quarter. His design was inspired and the result is the beautiful Standing Liberty Quarter.
Front of Standing Liberty Quarter
The Front of this quarter depicts a Standing frontal view of Liberty, her left arm upraised and holding a shield. There is drapery around the shield drawn by her right hand. Her right hand also holds an olive branch. At the top of coin is the word LIBERTY and the date at the bottom of the coin. IN GOD WE TRUST is flanking the figure of Liberty.
Reverse of Standing Liberty Quarter
On the reverse side of the standing Liberty quarter is an American eagle in flight. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is at the top of the coin and E PLURIBUS UNUM is printed just below that. At the coin’s bottom are the words QUARTER DOLLAR.
The first of these quarters were minted in December 1916 and continued through the 1930s with over 226 million coins struck at three mints; Philadelphia (no mint mark) San Francisco (S) and New Orleans (O). The mint mark is situated at the left of the date and MacNeil’s initial (M) is found at the right of the date.
There were no Liberty quarters struck in 1922.
Modifications of These Coins
There are two sub types of these coins that modified the coins appearance.
- Sub type I- Was issued in 1916 and 1917. In 1917 driven by concern about Liberty’s bare breast, the coin was modified so that the breast was covered by chain mail.
- Sub type II- From 1917 though 1930 the modification to the Standing Liberty coin consists of the chain mail and the re positioning of stars along the chain mail.
In 1925 the front of the quarter also underwent some modification. The date on the earlier coins were one of the raised features causing the date to wear more rapidly than expected. So in 1925 the date was recessed so that it would remain readable.
Because of the raised dates on the coins from 1916-1924 finding a coin with the date intacted can be difficult.
Due to the beauty of the Standing Liberty quarter these coins are extremely popular with collectors today. The Series can still be collected in it’s entirety by date and mint. It is still possible even today to get a full set of these coins in uncirculated condition although doing so is rare.