The Standing Liberty quarter was designed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil and minted from 1916 to 1930. It contains 0.1808 troy ounces of 90% silver, yielding 0.1627 troy ounces of pure silver — the same as all pre-1965 US quarters. The coin weighs 6.25 grams.
Standing Liberty quarters are notably harder to find in the junk silver market than Washington quarters because they're older and had shorter production runs. When they appear, they often command a premium over both melt and comparable Washington quarters due to collector demand and attractive design.
The Type 1 (1916-1917) features a bare-breasted Liberty, which was controversial and led to a redesign in 1917 (Type 2) with chain mail covering Liberty's chest. Many dates in this series are worn nearly flat because the date was positioned on a high point of the design and wore down quickly. The recessed date variety (1925-1930) solved this but earlier dates are often unreadable, reducing their numismatic value while retaining full silver content.
Trade at 10-30% over melt for common dates. The 1916 Type 1 is scarce and expensive. Many dates are found with worn-off dates but still contain full silver content.