A common Barber quarter is worth about $11-17 in the worn condition most are found in, as of October 2026. Each coin holds 0.18084 troy ounces of silver, about $10.50 with silver near $58 an ounce. The three key dates are different coins entirely: a 1896-S sells for about $500-900 in Good, a 1913-S for about $1,100-1,700, and a 1901-S for about $3,000-5,000 even worn almost smooth.
The Barber quarter was struck from 1892 to 1916 at Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco and, from 1906, Denver. Most dates were made in the millions and survive in the low grades that hard circulation left behind. Two things decide the price: the date and mint mark, which tell you whether the coin is common or a key, and how much of the word LIBERTY still shows on Liberty's headband, which is the quickest way to place it in a grade.
Quick answer
- Common date, worn smooth (About Good to Good): about $11-17, close to the $10.50 silver value at $58 silver.
- Common date with full LIBERTY on the headband (Fine): about $25-40. Uncirculated common dates: roughly $200-450.
- Semi-keys such as the 1897-S, 1909-O and 1914-S: about $40-200 in Good.
- Keys in low grade: 1896-S about $500-900, 1913-S about $1,100-1,700, 1901-S about $3,000-5,000.
How do you identify and value a Barber quarter, step by step?
Read the date, find the mint mark on the reverse, then grade the headband. Those three checks take a minute and settle most coins.
- Confirm it is a Barber quarter. Liberty faces right, wearing a cap with a laurel wreath and a headband inscribed LIBERTY. IN GOD WE TRUST runs above her head and 13 six-pointed stars circle the rim. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle holding a ribbon reading E PLURIBUS UNUM, with arrows and an olive branch, and QUARTER DOLLAR below. The coin is 24.3 mm across with a reeded edge, the same size as a modern quarter. If the reverse has a plain wreath, you have a dime, and our Barber dime value guide covers it.
- Read the date at the bottom of the obverse. On a worn coin, tilt it under a single lamp so the light rakes across the surface.
- Find the mint mark. It is a small letter on the reverse, directly below the eagle's tail feathers and above the D of DOLLAR. No letter means Philadelphia. O is New Orleans (1892 to 1909), S is San Francisco, D is Denver (1906 to 1916).
- Check the date and mint against the key list below. If you have a 1896-S, 1901-S or 1913-S, stop handling the coin with bare fingers and go straight to the section on fakes and the section on getting it looked at.
- Grade the headband. Count the letters of LIBERTY you can read. None means About Good or Good. Three or more letters, even partial, means Very Good. All seven letters, even if weak, means Fine. Sharp letters with a crisp edge to the band means Very Fine or better. Our coin grading scale guide shows each grade.
- Look at the rim. On many Barber quarters the rim has worn into the lettering. A flat rim with the tops of the letters gone is About Good at best.
- Check for damage. Holes, bends, solder, rim filing and the bright, scratched look of a polished coin all pull a common date down to silver value.
- Price it from sold results, not asking prices, for the exact date, mint and grade.
What is a Barber quarter worth?
Prices below are for undamaged coins with honest wear as of October 2026, drawn from recent auction results and the Red Book figures carried by dealer price pages. Semi-key ranges are hedged because price guides disagree.
| Coin | Mintage | Good | Fine | Uncirculated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common dates, all mints (1892-1916) | Millions each | $11-17 | $25-40 | Roughly $200-450 |
| 1892-S | Under 1 million | About $30-60 | About $80-150 | $300 and up |
| 1896-O, 1897-O, 1901-O | About 1.4-1.6 million each | About $40-90 | About $140-250 | $600 and up |
| 1897-S | 542,229 | About $120-170 | About $300-600 | $1,000 and up |
| 1909-O | 712,000 | About $45-115 | About $400-700 | $1,800 and up |
| 1914-S | 264,000 | About $125-200 | About $375-600 | $1,000 and up |
| 1896-S | 188,039 | About $500-900 | About $1,800-2,500 | $10,000 and up |
| 1913-S | 40,000 | About $1,100-1,700 | About $4,000-6,000 | $12,000 and up |
| 1901-S | 72,664 | About $3,000-5,000 | About $11,000-17,000 | $30,000 and up |
The 1913-S has the lowest mintage of the regular series at 40,000, but the 1901-S is the rarer coin and the more valuable one, because few were saved and nearly all survivors are worn down to About Good or Good. Price guides bear that out: the 1901-S is listed at roughly $2,750-3,700 in About Good 3 and about $3,200-5,250 in Good 4, against about $1,100-1,600 for a 1913-S in the same grades. Graded 1896-S coins in Good 4 have sold at auction for roughly $500-960. Guides disagree by a few hundred dollars at each grade, so check recent sold results for your exact grade.
How much silver is in a Barber quarter?
Every Barber quarter is 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper, weighs 6.25 grams and contains 0.18084 troy ounces of pure silver. At $58 an ounce that is about $10.49, and each $5 move in silver changes the melt by about 90 cents. A badly worn coin loses a little weight, so dealers buying in bulk often pay slightly under full melt. The silver is the floor: a holed or bent common date is still worth roughly melt. Our guide to silver quarters covers the melt math for every pre-1965 quarter.
What does LIBERTY on the headband tell you?
It tells you the grade. The headband sits on the highest part of the design, so it wears first, and collectors use it the way Buffalo nickel collectors use the horn.
| Grade | What you see | Common-date price, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| About Good (AG3) | Rim worn into the letters, date readable, LIBERTY gone | About $10.50-13, close to melt |
| Good (G4-G6) | Full rim, date clear, LIBERTY gone | About $11-17 |
| Very Good (VG8-VG10) | At least three letters of LIBERTY readable | About $16-22 |
| Fine (F12-F15) | All seven letters readable, band edges worn | About $25-40 |
| Very Fine (VF20-VF35) | LIBERTY sharp, band edges distinct, some leaf detail | About $45-75 |
| Extremely Fine (XF40-XF45) | Light wear on cheek and cap, eagle feathers mostly sharp | About $65-100 |
| About Uncirculated (AU50-AU58) | Trace wear on high points, some luster | About $100-160 |
| Uncirculated (MS60-MS63) | No wear at all | Roughly $200-450 |
| Damaged, holed or polished | Any grade | Melt value, about $10-11 |
For key dates the same scale applies but the gaps between grades are much larger. A 1913-S in VG sells for roughly $1,800-2,900, well above a Good one.
How do you spot a fake key-date Barber quarter?
Most fake Barber keys are real coins with an altered mint mark or date, not cast copies. A 1913 Philadelphia quarter (itself scarce, with about 484,000 struck) or a 1901 Philadelphia quarter can have an S glued or soldered below the eagle. Look at the S under a 10x loupe. A genuine mint mark rises from the field with no seam, sits in the same metal color as the surrounding surface and shows the same wear as nearby feathers. An added S often has a line around its base, a slightly different color, or crisp edges on a coin that is otherwise worn smooth. Compare the shape of the S with photos of graded examples on the PCGS and NGC sites, since the punch style is known for each date.
Altered dates are rarer but exist, usually a reworked last digit. Cast fakes look soapy, with soft lettering and sometimes a seam on the edge, and they often weigh less than 6.25 grams. A digital scale that reads to 0.01 gram is a useful home check, though a genuine heavily worn coin can weigh 6.0-6.1 grams. Any 1896-S, 1901-S or 1913-S worth buying or selling at key-date prices should be in a PCGS or NGC holder.
A worked example
Say you find a Barber quarter in a box of your grandfather's coins. The date reads 1908, and on the reverse, below the eagle's tail, there is a small D. The 1908-D is a common date, with several million struck. On the obverse you can read L, I and part of B on the headband, which puts it at Very Good. The rim is full and there are no holes or scratches. That coin is worth about $16-22 as of October 2026, a few dollars over its $10.50 in silver. If the same coin had a sharp, complete LIBERTY and a little luster, it would move to $45-75. If it had been a 1913-S in the same condition, you would be looking at roughly $1,800-2,900 and a trip to a grading service.
Common mistakes
- Treating every old quarter as rare. The Barber series was struck in the hundreds of millions. A worn common date is a $11-17 silver coin, and that is a fair, honest price.
- Missing the mint mark. It is on the reverse, not the obverse. People check under the date on the front and find nothing.
- Reading a worn O as nothing. On New Orleans coins the O can wear to a faint ring; a loupe settles it.
- Cleaning the coin. Polishing leaves fine hairlines that collectors see at once. A cleaned key date can lose a third or more of its value. Leave it as found.
- Pricing a key from an asking price. Listings for raw 1901-S and 1913-S quarters are often altered coins or optimistic. Sold results for graded coins are the honest benchmark.
- Confusing the Barber quarter with the later Standing Liberty quarter. That series began in 1916 and has its own key dates, covered in our Standing Liberty quarter value guide.
How WorthPic reads Barber quarter photos
WorthPic runs on the newest and most capable AI model available, tuned for exactly this kind of identification. From a clear photo of each side it reads the date, finds the mint mark below the eagle, counts the letters of LIBERTY on the headband and checks the rim, the cheek and the eagle's feathers for wear. It then places the coin against current sold results for that date, mint and grade and gives an honest US dollar range with a most likely figure, and it explains what drives the price. What it cannot know from a photo is the exact weight, whether a key-date mint mark was added, or whether a coin was cleaned in a way the lighting hides, and it says so and asks for the photo that would settle it. It identifies and estimates. It does not authenticate, grade or appraise.
What to photograph
- The obverse straight on in even daylight, so the date and the headband are readable.
- The reverse straight on, showing the eagle and the area below its tail.
- The mint mark close up, filling the frame, with light from one side. This is the photo that matters for any S or O coin.
- The headband close up, angled so the light shows whatever letters remain.
- The edge, if the coin might be cast or has been in jewelry.
- The coin on a digital scale, if you have one, for any key date.
When should you get it looked at in person?
A common date in Good to Fine does not need an expert. A local coin dealer will pay close to melt for a handful and a bit more for nicer coins, and a sold-listing search will give you the retail figure. Get a second opinion for any 1896-S, 1901-S or 1913-S, for any coin that looks uncirculated, and for the semi-keys in Fine or better. For those, PCGS or NGC grading is what buyers pay for; fees depend on the service level and the coin's value, so check the current fee pages before you submit. A dealer who belongs to the Professional Numismatists Guild, or a local coin club, can look at a suspected key before you pay the fee. Heritage, Stack's Bowers and GreatCollections are the auction houses where graded Barber keys sell. If you have a mixed group, our guide to inherited coins walks through sorting it.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Barber coinage: design, 6.25 g weight, 90 percent silver, 0.18084 oz silver content, mint mark location and 1892 to 1916 dates.
- JM Bullion: Barber quarter values: Red Book values by date and grade for common and key dates.
- CoinCollecting.com: Barber quarter key dates and values: grade ranges for semi-keys and keys.
- LuckyCoin: 1901-S Barber quarter: mintage of 72,664 and grade-by-grade guide values.
- LuckyCoin: 1913-S Barber quarter: mintage of 40,000 and low-grade guide values.
- Collectors Key: 1896-S Barber quarter: mintage of 188,039 and reference values by grade.