1977-D Washington Quarter--Struck on a Silver Clad Planchet--AU-55 (NGC).5.8 grams. Simply put, this is one of the most significant Mint errors that we have offered in recent sales. Whereas the 1977-D Washington quarter is a copper-nickel clad issue, this piece was erroneously struck on a silver clad planchet used for the some of the San Francisco Mints Bicentennial issues of 1976. NGC has certified this coin as a transitional error, a term reserved for special types of wrong planchet errors that involve coins struck on a planchet from a previous or following years production involving a chance in metallic composition. The discovery piece for this rare error was reported by Bernie Steinbock prior to 1981. Since then very few others have come to light, and to the best of our knowledge only one other example has appeared at auction in recent years, an NGC EF Details coin that sold as lot 3499 in Heritages January 2016 FUN Signature Auction. This error was known to Walter Breen, who assigned it catalog reference number 4457 in his 1988 encyclopedia and described it as such:"<em>The single great rarity in this period {1977-] is the 1977 D silver-clad; this piece is on an obsolete Bicentennial blank which remained in the hopper at resumption of regular nickel-clad coinage, in exact parallel to the 1943 bronze cents and 1946 wartime silver 5 [cent] coins. How it got to Denver is uncertain."</em>A pleasing Choice AU, both sides exhibit pale silver toning to sharply struck, near-fully lustrous surfaces. Smooth and inviting in hand, this coin is sure to see spirited bidding among both Mint error specialists and advanced Washington quarter collectors.
