1941-s quarter mint marks - what's the real deal?

wellcirculated

Hello folks, I was digging out my coin collection from about 30 years ago to show my son, and was looking at what I had. In looking at my 1941-s unc. washington, I noted a very, very small mintmark (compared to other "s" mintmarked quarters. I did a little digging, and found this:

http://www.money.org/publications/9905_fivaz.pdf

I also noted that, on a couple of web sites they did state that two different size "s" mintmarks occured in 1941. The NGC census seems to imply that the small mintmark version is more scarce, but other sites seem to state just the opposite. I'm trying to take a decent pic of the coin, but the macro on my cheapo 2 mp digital only focuses to 10". Does anyone have any knowledge of the scarcity/distribution of mintmarks on the "s" quarters for 1941? Any Washington Quarter guru's out there? Thanks in advance.

wam98

to the forum wellcirculated. Like your ID.

wellcirculated

Thanks - It reflects the condition of the obverse and the reverse (mine and much of my coin collection) -

DorkGirl

I don't know the answer to your question, sorry...but

LindeDad

According to the Red Book page 67.
The S mint dies were changed during 1941. Key is during so mint populations of the large and small were not recorded. All coins were changed except the half dollars.

pharmer

Welcome to the boards. Your quarter sounds like it has the small mintmark, which is common, versus the larger so-called "trumpet" mintmark, which is in Cherrypickers as 25C FS-013.5. As you noted in the Fivaz article, the large S is considered very rare. I agree that not much info is out there, but maybe James Wiles addresses it in his Washington quarter books. Pretty sure the volume covering this year is out there.

RGL

Large S mintmarks exist for all 1941 denominations but the cent. They were used on dies late in the year, and for a small portion of the total mintage, as compared to the Small S. Large S, at least based on my experience with the Jeffs, are relatively infrequent, but not uncommon in circulated condition. They are much harder to come by in BU. I can only hypothesize that collectors set aside rolls earlier in the year, thus not many rolls of the later-in-the-year Large S were saved.

wellcirculated

Thanks for the offerings folks, and for the welcome too. I do have a follow-up questions though. Take a looksee at this:

http://ngccoin.com/poplookup/poplookup-reportlarge.asp?PopSubCatID=38

Sure enough, NGC has three varieties of "s" mintmarks catalogued for the 1941-s quarter - contradicting Fivaz. Small, Medium and Large? Want fries with that? Is this just an NGC oops? Thanks again.