1/4 Dollar Pattern

Liberia's 1889 pattern coinage was produced as part of a broader push to establish a functioning national currency independent of the foreign trade coins — primarily US cents and British coppers — that circulated informally throughout the country. The aluminium composition is deliberate: by the late 1880s, newly industrialized aluminium was being seriously evaluated by several governments as a lightweight, corrosion-resistant coinage metal. It never caught on for circulation issues in Liberia or elsewhere at this scale.

KM#Pn21 is one of several denominations pattern-struck that year, none of which entered production.