The 50 State Quarters program was initially inspired by a 1992 Royal Canadian Mint program, "Canada 125", marking the 125th anniversary of the country's Confederation with a series of commemorative 25-cent pieces representing each of its 12 (at the time) provinces and territories. The Canada 125 program sparked a revival of interest in coin collecting among Canadians, which led American numismatists to advocate for the United States Mint to create a similar series of coins representing U.S. states.[6][7]
In 1992, Congress passed the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games Commemorative Coin Act. In addition to authorizing a series of commemorative coins marking the 1996 Summer Olympics, the law also established the Citizens Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee (CCCAC) to consider ideas for future releases.[8] After Treasury SecretaryLloyd Bentsen appointed the committee in December 1993, several of its members, led by David Ganz, urged the committee to endorse a state quarters program. Initially, Ganz found support from only Charles Atherton, from the Federal Commission on Fine Arts, and Dan Hoffman, a young numismatist from South Carolina who also served on the CCCAC. However, by 1995, the CCCAC finally endorsed the idea. The committee then sought the support of Representative Michael Castle (R-Delaware), chairman of the House Banking subcommittee with jurisdiction over the nation's coinage. Castle's initial caution was resolved when Diehl suggested the coins be issued in the order the states entered the Union or ratified the Constitution. Delaware, Castle's home state, was the first state to ratify the Constitution, and would thus get to be the first state to have its quarter released. Castle subsequently held hearings and filed legislation to authorize the program.[9]
Despite the support of the director of the mint and the Treasury Secretary-appointed CCCAC, the Treasury Department opposed the 50 States Quarters Program, as commemorative coinage had come to be identified with abuses and excesses.[10] The Mint's economic models estimated the program would earn the government between $2.6 billion and $5.1 billion in additional seignorage and $110 million in additional numismatic profits. Diehl and Castle used these profit projections to urge the Treasury's support, but Treasury officials found the projections to lack credibility (at the program's conclusion, the Mint estimated the program had earned $3 billion in additional seignorage and $136.2 million in additional numismatic profits).[4]
Diehl worked with Castle behind the scenes to move legislation forward despite the Treasury's opposition to the program.[1][11] However, the Treasury suggested to Castle that the department should conduct a study to determine the feasibility of the program. With Diehl's advice, Castle accepted the Treasury's offer, and the agreement was codified in the United States Commemorative Coin Act of 1996.[12][13] The act also authorized the Secretary to proceed with the 50 States Quarters Program without further congressional action if the results of the feasibility study were favorable.
The Treasury Department engaged the consulting firm Coopers and Lybrand to conduct the study in 1997, which confirmed the Mint's demand, seignorage, and numismatic profit projections for the program.[10] Among other conclusions, the study found that 98 million Americans were likely to save one or more full sets of the quarters (at the program's conclusion, the Mint estimated that 147 million Americans collected the 50 state quarters). Nevertheless, the Treasury Department continued to oppose the program and declined to proceed with it without a congressional mandate to do so.[4]
In 1997, Congress issued that mandate in the form of S. 1228, the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program Act, which was signed into law by PresidentBill Clinton on December 1, 1997.
The 50 State quarters were released by the United States Mint every ten weeks, or five each year. They were released in the same order that the states ratified the Constitution or were admitted to the Union. Each quarter's reverse commemorated one of the 50 states with a design emblematic of its unique history, traditions, and symbols. Certain design elements, such as state flags, images of living persons, and head-and-shoulder images of deceased persons were prohibited.
The authorizing legislation and Mint procedures gave each state a substantial role and considerable discretion in determining the design that would represent their state. The majority of states followed a process by which the governor solicited the state's citizens to submit design concepts and appointed an advisory group to oversee the process. Governors submitted three to five finalist design concepts to the Secretary of the Treasury for approval. Approved designs were returned to the states for selection of a final design.
States usually employed one of two approaches in making this selection. In 33 states, the governor selected the final recommended design, often based on the recommendations of advisory groups and citizens. In the other 17 states, citizens selected the final design through online, telephone, mail, or other public votes. US Mint engravers applied all final design concepts approved by the Treasury Secretary. The media and public attention surrounding this process and the release of each state's quarter was intense and produced significant publicity for the program.[4][14]
The 50 State Quarters Program was the most popular commemorative coin program in United Stateshistory; the United States Mint has estimated that 147 million Americans have collected state quarters and 3.5 million participated in the selection of state quarter designs.[4]
By the end of 2008, all of the original 50 States quarters had been minted and released. The official total, according to the US Mint, was 34,797,600,000 coins. The average mintage was 695,952,000 coins per state, but ranged from Virginia's 1,594,616,000 to Oklahoma's 416,600,000. Demand was stronger for quarters issued early in the program. This was due to weakening economic conditions in later years and the waning of the initial surge of demand when the program was launched. Another factor was the reassertion of the Treasury Department's opposition to the program. When the director's term ended in 2000, the Treasury proceeded to reduce and finally terminate the most effective elements of the Mint's promotional program despite the high return on investment they earned.
Alabama: The Alabama state quarter is the first coin circulated in the US that features writing.[22]
Braille
Arizona: The banner reading "Grand Canyon State" in the design is intended to split the quarter into two sections and indicate the Grand Canyon and the Saguaro Cactus are in two different Arizona scenes, as the saguaro cactus is not native to the area near the Grand Canyon.
[23]
Connecticut: The on the back of the Connecticut quarter fell during a storm on August 21, 1856. It also appears on a 1936 half dollar commemorating the 300th anniversary of the state's settlement by Europeans.[24]
Charter Oak
Georgia: The outline of the state of Georgia on the quarter appears to have accidentally left out , which is in the extreme northwestern part of the state. In 1860, Dade residents voted to secede from the United States and from the state of Georgia. The county's secession was never legally recognized, and Dade residents chose to "rejoin" the United States in 1945.[25]
Dade County
Hawaii: The Hawaii quarter features a rendition of King Kamehameha I, who united the Hawaiian Islands in 1810, with the state outline and motto. This is the first business strike US coin to feature royalty or a monarch of any kind.
the statue of
Illinois: The Illinois quarter is the only quarter to directly reference and portray an urban city, with a picture of the skyline (the Missouri quarter indirectly references the city of St. Louis with its portrayal of the iconic Gateway Arch).
Chicago
Indiana: The Indiana quarter—having a problem similar to Georgia's quarter—is missing part of its northwestern corner. is either partially or completely missing (where it borders with Lake Michigan). The error did not garner considerable notice.
Lake County
Iowa: When Iowans were debating the design for its state quarter in 2002, there was a grassroots effort to use a design featuring the (to honor the five Waterloo siblings who died when the ship they were aboard—the USS Juneau (CL-52)—sank during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 1942). The effort was ultimately unsuccessful, and a Grant Wood design was used, but not before some copyright issues were resolved.[26][27]
Sullivan brothers
Maryland: The Maryland Statehouse featured on the coin is the country's largest wooden dome built without nails. Some residents complained that the quarter did not feature the state's famous blue crab.
[28]
Mississippi: The magnolia blossom design, while recognizable at the high levels of magnification at which it was presented for review, appears at production scale as an amorphous mass recognizable only when the accompanying state nickname inscription suggests the image's intended content to the viewer.
Missouri: The design contest winner for the Missouri quarter, Paul Jackson, has claimed that the Mint needlessly redesigned Jackson's original submission. The Mint stated that Jackson's design was not coinable, but a private mint later demonstrated that it was. It emerged that Mint engravers may exercise discretion in the final design of US coinage, and the term "design contest" was dropped from solicitations for ideas for later state quarters.[29][30]
engraver
Nebraska: One of the final concepts for the Nebraska quarter was based on the leader Standing Bear, who, in a suit brought against the federal government, successfully argued that Native Americans were citizens entitled to rights under the US Constitution.
Ponca
New Hampshire: The , featured on the back of the New Hampshire quarter, collapsed in 2003, less than three years after the quarter's release.
Old Man of the Mountain
New Jersey. The first coin in history to ever depict George Washington on both sides.
Oregon: Oregon's design features a scene of and Wizard Island. This design was chosen by the Oregon Commemorative Quarter Commission. The Quarter Commission was made up of 18 members, including GovernorTed Kulongoski, State TreasurerRandall Edwards, Columbia Sportswear Chairperson Gert Boyle, numismatist Monte Mensing, and Beaverton High School student Laura Davis, along with state legislators Charles Starr, Joan Dukes, Betsy Johnson, and Betsy Close, among others. The Quarter Commission chose the Crater Lake design from three other finalists: a jumping salmon, the Oregon Trail, and Mount Hood.
Crater Lake
Rhode Island: With a mast height of 199 ft (61m) the yacht could not have sailed under the Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge, which has a clearance below of 188 ft (57m), although the coin does not show the ship sailing under the bridge. This would also not have happened because Reliance was sold for scrap in 1913 and the Pell Bridge opened in 1969.
Reliance
South Dakota: Although South Dakota has the second highest proportion of of any state, the South Dakota quarter features three items that are the result of European settlement. These symbols are Mount Rushmore, which honors four U.S. presidents and is carved into the Black Hills which are seen as sacred by the Lakota, a ring-necked pheasant (an introduced species of Asian origin), and wheat, a Eurasian crop which has replaced much of the state's native grasslands.
Native Americans
Tennessee: There has also been some controversy over the Tennessee quarter. Some sources claim that the details on the instruments depicted on the quarter are inaccurate, such as the number of strings on the guitar and the location of the tubing on the trumpet. The number of strings on the guitar-like instrument would be accurate if the instrument was a Mexican vihuela that influenced the country-and-western music prominent in Nashville culture and business.
5 strings on the guitar on the Tennessee state quarter. The instrument, however, has six tuning pegs, so is, in fact, a guitar and not a vihuela.
[32]
West Virginia: During the submission process for the design of the West Virginia quarter, there was an apparent movement to put the famous on the final design.[33]
Mothman
Wisconsin:
Main article:
A number of the Wisconsin quarters featured a small mint error: the ear of corn features an extra leaf. Some of the affected coins feature a "low leaf", others feature a "high leaf". All of these "error coins" were minted at the Denver mint. It is unclear whether the error was deliberate or accidental, but the error generated considerable initial interest. Sets of the flawed coins once sold on eBay for up to $2,800, although the 2013 edition of R.S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins lists considerably lower prices for uncirculated specimens.[34][35]
2004 Wisconsin state quarter misprint
Wyoming: Some Wyoming quarters were released in 2007 with indications of improper quality control. Many persons, upon first seeing the same cowboy outline design used on the state's automobile license plates, have mistakenly believed that the lack of detail is itself a flaw, the result of an incomplete striking. However, evidence of cracks in the die and subsequent hasty repairs have been observed in a few circulation specimens.
[36]
On July 25, 2001, ran a satirical news story titled "Collecting All 50 State Quarters Senior's Only Reason To Remain Alive".[46] On May 4, 2005, it ran a further story titled "U.S. Mint Gears Up To Issue Commemorative County Pennies".[47]
Sculptor Daniel Carr, whose designs were used for the New York and Rhode Island state quarters and whose concept was adapted for the Maine state quarter, has created a series of parody quarters making light of the state quarter concept.
[54]
50 State quarter mintage figures
District of Columbia and United States Territories quarters
America the Beautiful quarters
Westward Journey Nickel Series
Presidential dollar coins
American Innovation dollars
United States Bicentennial coinage
German Bundesländer €2 coins
Canadian 125th Anniversary provincial quarters
60th Anniversary of Enforcement of the Local Autonomy Law 500 yen commemorative coins
