The idea of looking at the full Washington quarter series, one date and mintmark at a time, was quite popular for a time.
This week, it is time for the 1942-S quarter. There is nothing remarkable about the coin, but we need to dig a bit.
It has long been close to an article of faith that there were no special Washington quarters. Even the 1932-D and 1932-S don’t get the respect that true rarities deserve, despite awfully low mintages of 436,800 and 408,000, respectively.
They are the key dates of a series that has spent most of its life in hobby shadows. For those of us who grew up in the circulation finds era, the Washington quarter was current, common, and plain. It was a higher denomination and, if…