What Are The Criteria For A "Key Date?"

Thanks for responding DBM ... that makes a lot of sense.

"One from each series", eh? => that is the first formal rule/criteria I've heard so far ...


1875H is the key-date for the Victorian Series.

"1906" (not 1904) is probably the key-date in the Edward-VII Series, right DBM?

1915 is the key-date for the George-V Series.

1948 is probably the key date for the George-VI Series, (or maybe 1947?)

1954 is the key-date for the Elizabeth-II Series (Laureate Portrait)

1970 is the key-date for the Elizabeth-II Series (Tiara Portrait)

1991 is definitely the key-date for the Elizabeth-II Series (Diademed Portrait)

? for the key-date of the Elizabeth-II Series (Uncrowned Portrait) => she's still ticking ...

... and then as you mentioned, there could be semi key-dates within each of the series (yup, that's my new way of categorizing my quarters)

Thanks again for the rule, DBM (I like it!)

For the Edward VII 25 cents series, I would consider the 1906 Small Crown to be a rare variety that is so freakishly rare in decent grades to be excluded from consideration. The 1906 Large Crown generally goes for about half the price of the 1904.

So for regular issues, I would say that 1904 is the key date regular issue, with 1905 not far behind.

For George V, I think everyone agrees with 1915, with 1921 and 1927 being about half the price of the 1915 at better grades. The 1921 and 1927 are about 2 1/2 times the next rarest/most popular, the 1911.

For the George VI, I would say 1938 is the key date at most grades, with arguments for second place among the 1939, 1947 and 1948.

For the Elizabeth II series, I agree with 1954.

littlemoney => I'm thinking that semi key-dates are coins that didn't actually get the title of key-date (the rarest of the series), but were the runners-up (dates that are hard to find, but aren't the absolute rarest of the series) ... right?

Mr Canada => I also have collected what I call a complete set (again, maybe not containing all of the obverse varieties and not all of the extreme outlier gems such as 1906SC, etc) ... however, I keep trying to upgrade the collection to higher and higher grades ... at the moment, I only have 14 "vg" coins to replace, the rest of the coins range from Fine through Mint condition ...

My latest upgrade was a 1915 VF-30 => the 1915 quarter was what started me thinking about key-date coins (I wanted opinions whether it was actually a key-date coin) ... all of you agreed that the 1915 was a key-date coin, so that made me happy with my new purchase.

Thanks for responding