1822 Capped Bust Quarter. B-2. Rarity-5. 25/50C. AU 58+ (PCGS).Shimmering with deeply mirror-like reflective surfaces and punctuated by a wonderfully frosted almost blemish-free bright white bust of Liberty, all of which with just the barest hints of an overall lightly golden hue. The reverse is no different with razor-sharp cameo-like devices on a nearly crystal-clear field, combined make for a coin that is very much suggestive of a much higher-grade Mint State example. A beauty by any definition.Quarters were not especially popular in commerce in the early nineteenth century with the workhorse bust half dollar serving most commercial needs at the time. Only 64,080 1822 quarters were struck in four batches produced from only one obverse die and two reverses. Remarkably, the die cutter who prepared one of the two reverse dies inadvertently thought he was cutting the reverse for a half dollar and put a 50 instead of a 25 for the denomination then only later realized his mistake and somewhat haphazardly tried to remove evidence of the mistake. Only a comparatively small percentage of the overall mintage were struck from the Browning-2 die combination and today is a notably scarce and dramatic variety. Amazingly, this reverse die was shelved for six years only to be reused in 1828 in the B-3 die marriage. A small cluster of uncirculated and Proof B-2 examples are known and recorded, but most specimens found are generally at the middle levels of preservation and seldom found finer. With its visually striking highly reflective surfaces, it would take some considerable effort to locate a finer specimen. Not to be missed.
