1996 Quarter. P Or D ?

looks like a P with a ding in it.

P mint mark

@fplagge while this coin is just an ordinary P mint mark, over mint marks do exist for coins 1955 and earlier as John said.

Do you remember as a kid on the playground, the rides we used to ride on? How we tried to hang on even tighter as the speed increased. Well to a die, this is happening, because of the constant striking, it keeps pushing the metal of the planchet to the outside edge of the coin. The same event, over and over. Thus the devices on the die start showing wear as the metal continues on it journey on them, to make that next coin. On this one, the die is showing a wear pattern, altering the devices. Thus enlarging the devices on the die, making coins with devices altered towards the rim. Eventually the dies breakdown and start getting ugly on the way. DDD starts to appear:





Then the mint will notice and eventually retire the die.














Then they will be retired. We notice them and wonder. Why did they wait so long to retire them?

CoopHome: The die aging process. What a die goes through during its life.