Key date coins are perhaps the heart of collecting 1800s and 1900s American circulated coins. Key date coins tend to be more scarce or have a very specific attribute versus other dates within in a coin series. And these key date coins tend to bring high prices and tend to attract the most attention by coin collectors and investors who want exposure to numismatics.

Collectors Dashboard has been offering some analysis on multiple key date coins. A set of key date coins for collectors and investors alike comes from the 1932 D and S quarters.

The 1932 Denver mintmark and San Francisco mintmark, respectively, are the two mintmarks to know for the Washington Quarter series. 1932 was the first year of minting for the Washington Quarter. With the United States Mint’s announcement to revert to the 1932-1998 obverse design on new 2021 quarters, the key dates of the original series deserve a fresh look at collectability.

Easy spotting features of any key date are a low mintage. The 1932 D had 436,800 minted and the 1932 S had 408,000. For sake of comparison and comprehension the 1932 Philadelphia minted quarter represented by no visible mintmark had 5,404,000 minted and the prices diverge from there.

A Bowers & Merena Auction sold the record $143,750 MS66 1932 D in April of 2008. The record that has been seen for 1932 S MS66 is $45,500 sold on the internet by the firm David Lawrence RC. The high sale for the 1932 S is two thousand dollars lower than what the listing price is for the condition. With 2 examples in MS66 for the D and 5 in MS66 for the S, the collectability and highest interest is found in MS63 to MS64 graded range.

A 1932 D quarter in MS65 condition listed in the 2004 Red Book for $14,000 at that time, but a Heritage Auctions sale sold the coin for $23,000 in March of that same year. Zooming up to 2021, the PCGS price guide listed the condition for $7,500. That is after a June 2018 Stack’s Bowers sale realized $6,600.

The 1932 S quarter in MS65, with a PCGS population of 192 is valued at $2,450 in 2021. The record sale for the date was only graded one point higher at MS66. The 1932 S has the lower mintage and untapped value while the series plateaus in prices of coins sold. March 2021 saw an MS65 sell by Stacks Bowers for $6,000. Also in March 2021 two graded in MS64 sold by Stacks Bowers sold for $1,380 and the same PCGS condition for only $528.

The PCGS website lists realized auction prices for the 1932-S MS Washington Quarter and fore the 1932-D MS Washington Quarter.

Another avenue for purchasing the 1932 D and S quarters is from eBay. The 1932 quarters can be found for under $50 ungraded and in the $55 to $100 range for lower graded examples.

As the key dates of the series, collectability will always be there for these two coins and they can be purchased for quite affordable prices at the entry level. There are of course no assurances that prices have to rise in these coins, similar to any asset class. Higher graded examples have been selling for lower rates than in 2004, but the newer release of the original obverse design might make it a good time to explore the grade that best fits within numismatists’ budgets and investors’ limits alike.