1976 quarter no mint mark: the blank Bicentennial quarter

A quarter dated 1776-1976 (the Bicentennial quarter, with a drummer on the back) and no letter to the right of Washington's ponytail was made in Philadelphia or West Point, and a worn one from a pocket spends as 25 cents; CoinWeek says worn clad Washington quarters "carry no numismatic premium." Either way it is the ordinary coin, made of copper and nickel layers (called clad), the same as the quarter in your change.

PCGS and NGC both give 809,784,016 for the Philadelphia coins. The US Mint's own history of West Point lists 1976 as the year it "produces Bicentennial quarters" and calls 2019 "the first time the W mint mark has appeared on circulating coins", so the West Point coins are blank too. Nobody, not the Mint, PCGS or NGC, publishes a separate West Point figure, so whether West Point's coins sit inside that number or beside it is unknown. It makes no difference to the value.

The blank is normal. The US Mint says the P only reached the quarter in 1980, and the quarter mint mark hub has every year of that run.

Can a Bicentennial quarter with no mint mark be silver?

No. The 40% silver quarters were sold only in collector sets, as proofs (specially struck collector coins with mirror fields) or uncirculated coins (never spent), and all were struck at San Francisco. The law that created the coin, Public Law 93-127, called for 45 million silver-clad pieces across the quarter, half dollar and dollar. NGC lists every silver one as 1776-1976 S and PCGS as 1976-S, under two PCGS numbers (#5898 for the uncirculated coin, #6008 for the proof), and neither service has a number for a silver Bicentennial quarter without the S.

The only silver piece catalogued without an S is a 1976 trial striking (a pattern). Greysheet calls those pieces unconfirmed and says one set is known to have been destroyed. It does not turn up in change.

A letter S does not prove silver either, because San Francisco also struck copper-nickel proofs; what each Bicentennial quarter is worth sorts the S coins out.

Why does it say 1776-1976 and not 1975?

Public Law 93-127, signed on October 18, 1973, put "1776-1976" on every quarter "minted for issuance between July 4, 1975, and January 1, 1977", so quarters made in 1975 carry the same double date. No quarter dated 1975 exists.

Is there a doubled-image version of the no-mint-mark quarter?

No. A doubled die is a coin whose die (the stamp that strikes the design) carried a doubled image. NGC's VarietyPlus list of named varieties, read on October 20, 2026, has three for the 1776-1976 quarter: two on Denver coins, FS-101 and FS-102, both doubled on the Washington side, and one on a San Francisco silver proof (VP-001). The blank coin has none. Shelf-like doubling on the letters comes from a worn press after the strike and is not a variety; error coins versus damage shows how to tell.

No-mint-mark Bicentennial quarter errors that actually sold

Real mint errors on this coin exist, and a few have sold at auction for real money. These are the ones where both the price and the kind of error are on record. In the grade column, MS (mint state) means never spent, on a scale from 1 to 70, and Details means graded but marked for a problem.

Heritage shows its prices only to signed-in members, so every figure in the table except the $2,520 comes from NGC's Auction Central, which counts the hammer price (the winning bid before the house's fee) plus the house's commission; the descriptions are Heritage's own lot titles. The $2,880 bought two coins in a single lot. The $2,520 is the "Auction Record" PCGS prints at the top of its page for this date, matched to NumisBids lot 5433: a $2,100 hammer plus Heritage's 20% premium. It is an error coin, not a price for an ordinary quarter in MS64.

What a 1976 no-mint-mark quarter is worth by grade

Grades run from 1 to 70 on the scale NGC's census uses (grading basics), and from 60 up they describe coins that were never spent. MS means mint state, no wear from pockets or machines: sharp details and original shine. AU means almost uncirculated, a trace of wear. If the high points on the cheek and the ponytail look flat or rubbed, the coin is worn, and NGC's guide lists it at $0.50 up to AU53, $0.75 at AU55 and $1 at AU58.

The PCGS figures were read on CoinFacts on October 20, 2026; NGC's guide was last updated on June 16, 2025, and its count of graded coins was read the same October day. The $0.50 is NGC's retail figure, the price a shop would put on one coin, not what a buyer pays you. NGC has graded 5,138 of these in all, and 3,603 of them sit at MS60, an odd spike NGC does not explain.

The $4,500 you see in headlines is a guide price for an MS68, a near-perfect coin, and PCGS's count of graded coins shows exactly one at that grade. CoinWeek says that coin, a toned one, sold at GreatCollections in 2023, but prints no price, and none of the sources behind this page has one. CoinWeek also puts NGC's MS68 coins at $550 to $700, without naming the lots.

The sales you can check are smaller. On the first page of NGC's Auction Central the best ordinary MS67 result is $132 (Heritage 131811, lot 24859, March 6, 2018), and the latest sale is an MS65 NGC at $164.70 (Heritage 132620, lot 25963, May 13, 2026). PCGS's grid also lists an MS67+ at $1,821 in April 2023.

What to check on the one in your hand

Start with the spot to the right of Washington's ponytail. Blank means Philadelphia or West Point, a D means Denver, and an S means San Francisco. PCGS's own write-up calls the blank coin the "1976-P", but there is no P on it.

Then weigh it. A normal one reads 5.67 grams (PCGS and NGC list the silver S coin at 5.75 grams, a gap only a jeweler's scale reading to 0.01 g shows), measures 24.3 millimeters and has a reeded (grooved) edge. If yours is clearly light or heavy, too small, missing part of its design, or carries a second image of the design, that is the coin to show a coin dealer or send to a grading company (a service that authenticates and rates coins). Leave it as it is: a cleaned coin sells for less. Whether West Point kept striking unmarked quarters after 1976 is on the 1977 quarter page.

Every price over a few dollars on this page depends on a grade or on a mint error, and a photograph proves neither. A grader holding the coin decides the first, and an error worth thousands is authenticated in person before anyone pays for it.

We make Buck, so read this paragraph with that in mind. Two photos, the front and then the back of one coin, from an iPhone or Android phone, get you the type (here the 1776-1976 clad quarter) and the price range the guides give it, where they give one. It keeps prices by type, not by grade, so the jump from $80 at MS67 to $4,500 at MS68 is not something it can read off your picture, and it cannot confirm an error either (what it costs).

What this page is based on, all read October 20, 2026: the US Mint and Public Law 93-127; PCGS CoinFacts (mintage, guide, population, the $2,520 and $1,821 records); NGC (weights, census, guide, VarietyPlus, and Auction Central for the Heritage prices realized); NumisBids and Heritage's lot titles; Greysheet; CoinWeek.