Washington Quarter Set 1948 - 1964 CIRC Washington Silver Quarter Set (40 Coins) w/ Littleton Folder

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1932 was President George Washington's 200th birthday. Congress wished to honor the occasion with a one year commemorative coin, either a half dollar or quarter dollar. The quarter dollar was chosen and minting of the Standing Liberty Quarter was suspended for a year.

The design for the coin was determined by a contest that stipulated the designs be modeled after Jean Houdon's iconic bust of Washington. While the design of Laura Fraser was initially accepted by the Commission of Fine Arts which was established by Congress in 1910 to advise on new designs for coins, medals, buildings, and federally controlled open spaces , Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon rejected it, convinced the decision was ultimately his own. Instead, he chose John Flanagan's profile of the first president. This quarter was originally meant to be a one-year-only commemorative coin, but its popularity made it the country's new regular-issue quarter in 1934 (no quarters were struck in 1933) .

Initially, the Washington Quarter was composed of 90% silver with 10% copper. By 1964, the price of silver had risen to where it would cost more than 25 cents to mint Washington Quarters. The Treasury Department switched to a clad composition consisting of an outer layer of 75% copper and 25% nickel with an entirely copper inner core.

In 1965 Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1965, which prohibited mintmarks on coins in an effort to keep collectors from removing the coins from circulation, As a result, the "D" was removed from Washington Quarters minted in Denver. Congress authorized adding the mintmark back to coins in 1968, though it was moved from the reverse to the obverse of the Washington Quarter.

To commemorate the Bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Mint held a competition for new designs of the reverse of the Washington Quarter in 1974. Jack Ahr won the competition with a design showing a colonial drummer boy and torch of liberty. In addition to the redesigned reverse, a double-date "1776-1976" was added to the obverse. For the Bicentennial, a small number of silver clad coins, consisting of an exterior plating of 80% silver and 20% copper with an inner core of 20.9% silver and 79.1% copper were minted for collectors.

In 1999 a 50 State Quarters Program replaced the traditional reverse with a ten-year series of designs, one for each of the 50 states. Also in 1999, William Cousins was selected to add hair lines to Washington's portrait, greatly altering the coin's appearance. Washington Quarters were issued by the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco Mints.