1984 quarter errors: what's real and what sold

No 1984 quarter variety is catalogued: NGC, one of the two big grading services, listed none for Philadelphia (P) or Denver (D) when we queried its catalog on October 27, 2026. The "1984 doubled ear" that fills search results is a Lincoln cent, not a quarter. What does exist for 1984 quarters is a scattering of one-off mint errors, single coins that went wrong in the press: struck off center, or broadstruck (stamped without the ring that keeps a coin round, so it spreads out wide). The documented sales we found ran from $27 to $432 for a single coin. A worn 1984 quarter from change is worth its face value: NGC's price guide lists $0.30 for every circulated grade, and CoinWeek says a worn Washington quarter carries "no numismatic premium" (nothing above face for collectors).

How to read your 1984 quarter

The mint mark is the small letter on the front, to the right of Washington's neck. Since 1980 Philadelphia quarters carry a P, the US Mint says, so a 1984 quarter has a P or a D. An S means a proof, a mirror-finished coin made for collector sets and never released into change. Where to look for mint marks shows the spot on other coins, and quarters from before 1980, when Philadelphia added no letter, are covered in the quarter mint mark guide.

That is over 1.2 billion quarters for circulation, and PCGS gives both dates its most common rarity rating.

A 1984 quarter is clad: two faces of 75% copper and 25% nickel bonded to a pure copper core, which shows as a thin copper stripe on the grooved edge. PCGS lists 5.67 grams and 24.30 millimeters; the US Mint's own specification says 24.26. A scale that reads to two decimals lets you compare a suspect coin with that 5.67 gram specification.

1984 quarter error list: what actually sold

These are the 1984 quarter errors with a sale, a lot number and a price behind them. All but one are Philadelphia coins. Heritage hides its prices from visitors who are not signed in, so these come from the auction records Greysheet (a dealer price guide) lists for the coin, read on October 27, 2026, and they probably include the buyer's fee, though we could not confirm that. Grades such as MS65 are explained further down. PCGS, NGC and ANACS are grading services.

An obverse indent means another blank lay on the coin's front (the obverse) during the strike and dented it.

Heritage also sold three more 1984-P quarters in sales of error coins, for $99 to $168 between 2020 and 2021, but nothing we could read names the error.

We found no documented sale of a 1984 quarter struck on the wrong planchet (the blank meant for a nickel or a cent), double struck, clipped (cut from the edge of the metal strip, leaving a curved bite), missing a clad layer, or struck by a die cap. We could not read Heritage's own archive, so that is not proof none exist, but anyone quoting a price for one should show the sale.

Error, damage or machine doubling

An error is anything that went wrong up to the final strike. PCGS's Jon Sullivan, writing in 2022, puts anything after that strike, even inside the Mint's counting machines, under post-mint damage, which adds nothing. By that definition, a bend, a gouge or a dent made after the coin left the press is damage.

Doubled letters are the other trap. A doubled die is a flaw cut into the die itself (the hardened stamp that presses the design into the metal), so the same doubling repeats on each coin it strikes. Machine doubling happens in the press and looks like a flat shelf beside the letters; NGC calls it "a mere novelty" that "does not usually add value". Neither NGC nor PCGS catalogues a 1984 quarter doubled die, so a doubled-looking 1984 quarter matches no listed variety. Our guide to mint errors and post-mint damage shows both side by side.

1984 quarter value by grade

Unworn coins sit on a scale from MS60 to MS70 (MS is short for mint state, meaning no wear), and each step up means fewer marks. The coin grading basics page covers the whole scale. These are the two grading services' price guides:

The PCGS guide was last updated on October 26, 2026. NGC's was last updated on March 21, 2022, so treat its column as old.

The MS68 figure is a guide value only. For the Philadelphia coin, PCGS's census of the best examples it has graded tops out at MS67, with ten coins there. NGC's census (its count of every coin it has graded) shows 300 Philadelphia coins with a single MS68 at the top, and 154 Denver coins topping out at MS67, ten of them. PCGS's Jaime Hernandez writes that the 1984-P is easy to find in gem condition and "only in MS67 condition or higher is it considered scarce."

The best real sales were both MS67s graded by PCGS: $1,292.50 for a 1984-P at Heritage on February 4, 2016, and $780 for a 1984-D at Heritage in June 2019 (NGC Auction Central and PCGS both list them). Recent sales have been lower. A 1984-D MS67 brought $312 at Heritage on April 15, 2024 and $144 at Stack's Bowers on June 20, 2024.

The myths, and what answers them

Checking a coin you think is special

A photo cannot settle a grade, and it cannot prove a coin is an error rather than damage. Compare its weight with the 5.67 gram specification, look at the edge, and for anything that seems to be worth more than a few dollars, show it to a dealer in person or send it to PCGS or NGC. Don't clean it: cleaning removes value. Then see how to sell a coin.

Buck, our app for iPhone and Android, works from photos: the front, then the back, one coin at a time. It is built to name the coin as a Washington quarter and show an estimate from a price guide, which is never an offer to buy, and a photo cannot settle the grade that decides a 1984 quarter's value.

What this page is based on: NGC VarietyPlus for the empty variety list; PCGS CoinFacts for the mintages, the specifications, the rarity rating, the condition census, Jaime Hernandez's note and the doubled ear cent; Greysheet for the proof mintage, the Heritage error sales and the $312 Denver sale; Stack's Bowers' own lot pages for the obverse indent and the $144 Denver sale; NGC Auction Central for the other regular-strike sales and the three unnamed error lots; the PCGS price guide (October 26, 2026) and NGC's price guide (March 21, 2022); NGC's census; NGC's article on doubled dies and machine doubling; PCGS's article by Jon Sullivan on errors and damage; the US Mint's pages on mint marks and coin specifications; CoinWeek for the face-value quote and the mint mark position; and Wikipedia's Washington quarter mintage table. Everything was read on October 27, 2026, except the two CoinWeek articles (September 21, 2026) and the Mint's specification page (October 20, 2026).