Average die life for US quarters?

SPalladino

Back in 1973-194 era, the average die life for 52100 steel dies for US quarters was reported as in the 250-300K range (reverse die life > obverse die life). I am not aware of a US mint source that lists average US quarter die life for more recent production runs. However, for comparison purposes, the average die life of a dime was about 125-207K in the 1973-1974 52100 steel era, and now the average die life is reported as "a dime die strikes only about 275,000 dimes") (https://www.usmint.gov/learn/production-process/die-making) I'm sure things have changed, and like the dime, the US quarter average die life maybe a bit higher - I doubt that the die life is significantly less than 300,000 now.

Can you point me to a more recent average die life source for US Quarters?

I ask because of the apparent mintages of the Maya Angelou and Sally Ride quarters from San Francisco are about 304,000. Coincidence is possible, but the MAQ and SRQ San Francisco mintages, being near 304,000, suggest that perhaps only one die pair was in use at the San Francisco mint for these issues. .....Conjecture without knowing the average die life for US quarter production.

oreville

Is die life longer for cents because copper plated zinc is softer and smaller?

SPalladino

@oreville said:
Is die life longer for cents because copper plated zinc is softer and smaller?

Likely.

ricko

I believe metal alloy, coin design (i.e. shallow relief) and coin material logically would (and has) combined to extend die life. Cheers, RickO

WinLoseWin

Here are some bad photos of the certificates for some of the state quarter coin and die sets I sold off about 15 years ago. They were originally sold by the mint and are issues from 2000 to 2002.

Each has the total number of coins struck by that die on the third line from the bottom.

Of the ones I photographed, it lool like most are in the 200,000 to 400,000 range with a few lower and one or two higher.

Seems possible the issues you mentioned might have been feasible with a single die.
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SPalladino

@WinLoseWin - thank you! That is very helpful. It corroborates the possibility that the S minted Women's Quarters (at least the MAQ and SRQ) may be from a single die pair....and quite likely not more than two die pairs.