Commentary on the American Women Quarter Dollar Series

New Quarter Dollar Reverses: Starting next year, the United States Mint will produce a series of designs of reverses of the Quarter Dollar coins honoring 20 women, with five designs produced per year through 2025. There are several concerns about this series. New Washington Obverse: There will also be a new obverse image of George Washington. The striking design by a female artist had won the contest, but was not chosen by the Mint for the final design for 1932, the bicentennial of Washington’s birth. The design appeared on a commemorative coin on the bicentennial of Washington’s death in 1999. The Latest and Planned Series: The new series follows the recently completed eleven-year America the Beautiful Series, which had followed the popular State and Territorial Series from 1999-2010. The series commemorated national parks in each of the States and Territories. Next will be designs to be released in 2026 for the American semi-quincentennial. The first will featuring a reverse of Washington leading troops about to cross the Delaware River from Pennsylvania in 1776 to surprise the Hessians, who were mercenaries of the British, at Trenton, New Jersey. The American victory revived the Revolutionary war effort of the Patriots after their nearly calamitous defeat on Long Island, New York. There will be four other reverses in the series, one of which will honor the contributions of women to the American Revolution. This series will be reminiscent of the popular Bicentennial Series from 1975-1976. There will then be a series for youth sports and Paralympics in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, lasting until 2030. There will be new reverses on Half Dollars for some of these series. There will be silver versions of most of these coins. Coin design themes are approved by law. Concerns about the American Women Series: Some of these series are more appropriate for medals, at least, or perhaps a commemorative coin series, than a general circulation series. Postage stamps are most suitable for a greater variety of designs than circulating coins. As I have noted previously, the Founding Fathers did not want the figures of people on coins because they did not want coinage to be used to promote themselves, like the Roman Emperors had done, or political factions or to be divisive. Instead, they adopted designs that were unifying, particularly including the allegorical female figure of Liberty on the obverses, instead of people, and other symbolic devices like wreaths and eagles. The same practice should apply to paper currency. Such figures or devices, historic events, as numismatists note, or perhaps the Founders, at most, such as a series on the Founding Fathers, would be more appropriate. The State and Territorial Series created billions of dollars in seigniorage (the profit from minting a coin), increased public interest in coin-collecting and were informative. They and the America the Beautiful Series promoted States of the American Union and National Parks, respectively, which are both appropriate federal themes. However, the American Women Series is motivated by politics and is of less broad interest to collectors and the public, is necessarily selective in choosing only 20 women over others, some of whom may have been controversial, and elevates the contributions of those chosen over many others whose contributions were equal or greater. The images of individual noteworthy women have already appeared on general circulation coins, such as Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea, and on commemorative coins, starting with the Queen Isabella Quarter in 1893. Furthermore, there is a growing fatigue among collectors in the continuous minting of series since 1999, not only for quarters, but also on other denominations of coins, which has led to decreased interest among the public. Also, the Mint has only been producing some of these series in collectors’ sets, meaning they are difficult to collect and the public has hardly seen the designs of these series. Call for New, More Appropriate Designs: Moreover, as numismatists note, there has been a lack of change in general circulation coin designs, especially obverses, unlike in the past practice of regularly producing new series, which provides an opportunity for new designs featuring more appropriate themes.