Making sense of 25 cents

The USA has been producing 25-cent pieces (quarters) with different images on them for quite a few years now, starting way back in 1796, though only intermittently back then. Annual production of USA quarters started in 1831.

Here are images of the backs of the earliest quarters produced in the USA.

On the left, a 1796 “Draped Bust” ….. on the right, an 1827 “Capped Bust”.

Images of women depicted on coins have almost always been either anonymous women or an image of “Liberty” or of the Statue of Liberty. Coins have depicted real, historic men. But, with very rare exception, coins have not depicted real, historic women.

But that changed recently. I’ll share photos below, but first here’s a bit of information about the USA quarter in general.

Currently, the USA quarter is composed of two layers of cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel) clad on a core of pure copper. With the cupronickel layers comprising 1/3 of total weight, the coin’s overall composition is therefore 8.33% nickel, 91.67% copper. Its weight is 0.1823 troy ounces or 0.2000 avoirdupois ounce … for those who wish to know these details. 🙂

One website I found reports that the last year silver quarters were produced was 1964. If you have a silver quarter from 1964 or earlier, it’s worth at least $3.83 today, possibly a whole lot more. That website talked about how “old” these 1964 quarters are. Some of us are old enough to think that 1964 isn’t old. 🙂 Nevertheless, $3.83 for a 25-cent coin is a very good deal!

Recently the USA produced 50 different quarters … a different quarter for each of the 50 states with an image of one of the 50 states on the back of each quarter. Lots of people collected all 50 of those quarters. I’m told that so many people collected them that it was hard to find some of them and that, because so many of those quarters have been collected that they are no longer being circulated, and so they won’t be worth any more than 25 cents for many decades to come because so many people have stashes of them at home.

But now, there is a new series of quarters being produced, with images of real, historic women on the reverse side of these quarters. Now that makes cents/sense!

Here is information (below) that I copied from the United States Mint website about these latest quarters and their production.

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The American Women Quarters Program is a four-year program that celebrates the accomplishments and contributions made by women of the United States. Beginning in 2022, and continuing through 2025, the U.S. Mint will issue up to five new reverse designs each year. The obverse of each coin will maintain a likeness of George Washington, but is different from the design used during the previous quarter program.

The American Women Quarters may feature contributions from a variety of fields, including, but not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. The women honored will be from ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse backgrounds.

The American Women Quarters Program is authorized by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-330).

Look for these quarters in your change or shop online for American Women Quarters products.

American Women Quarters

The pioneering American women celebrated on the quarters are listed below in the order the quarters will be released.

2022

• Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
• Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
• Wilma Mankiller – first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
• Nina Otero-Warren – suffrage leader and the first woman superintendent of Santa Fe public schools
• Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood

2023

• Bessie Coleman – first African American and first Native American woman licensed pilot
• Edith Kanakaʻole – indigenous Hawaiian composer, custodian of native culture and traditions
• Eleanor Roosevelt – leader, reformer, first lady, and author
• Jovita Idar – Mexican-American journalist, activist, teacher, and suffragist
• Maria Tallchief – America’s first prima ballerina

2024

• Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray – poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest
• Patsy Takemoto Mink – first woman of color to serve in Congress
• Dr. Mary Edwards Walker – Civil War era surgeon, women’s rights and dress reform advocate
• Celia Cruz – Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century
• Zitkala-Ša – writer, composer, educator, and political activist

2025

• Ida B. Wells – investigative journalist, suffragist, and civil rights activist
• Juliette Gordon Low – founder of the Girl Scouts organization
• Dr. Vera Rubin – astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation
• Stacey Park Milbern – activist for people with disabilities
• Althea Gibson – multi-sport athlete and first Black athlete to break the color barrier at the highest level in tennis

The obverse of each American Women Quarters coin will feature a portrait of George Washington facing right, originally composed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser. Laura Gardin Fraser was one of the most prolific women sculptors of the early 20th century. She designed the Alabama Centennial Half Dollar in 1921, becoming the first woman to design a U.S. coin. The Mint used her George Washington design on a 1999 gold commemorative coin marking the 200th anniversary of Washington’s death.

Design Selection Process

The Secretary of the Treasury selects the honorees following consultation with the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. In 2021, the public was invited to submit recommendations for potential honorees through a web portal established by the National Women’s History Museum.

Step One – Appoint Liaisons
The United States Mint (Mint) will initiate the design process by contacting the appropriate officials within the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative (SIWHI) and the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) (hereafter referred to as “legislated consultants”) to appoint one or more individuals to serve as the liaisons to the Mint for this coin program.

Step Two – Develop Design Concept Pool
In consultation with our legislated consultants, as well as representatives from other federal institutions they recommend, such as the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Gallery of Art, the Mint will develop a pool of design concepts that celebrate the important accomplishments and contributions made by women of the United States to the development and history of our country. The pool of concepts will be developed in part based on the solicitation of recommendations from the general public and in consultation with the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. The pool of concepts should represent a wide spectrum of accomplishments and fields that include, but are not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, the abolitionist movement, government, science, space and arts, and should honor women from ethnically and geographically diverse backgrounds. The Mint will produce each concept in title or narrative format and will work with the legislated consultants and other subject matter experts to verify the concept pool as accurate and appropriate.

Step Three – Formal Concept Recommendation & Secretarial Approval
In further consultation with the legislated consultants and appropriate subject matter experts, and in consultation with members of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC), the Mint will develop formal concept recommendations using the pool of recommended design concepts established in Step Two. The recommendations may include the individual women to be honored for a single year or multiple years of the program, the number of quarter designs to be featured on quarters in each year of the program, any suggested groupings of design concepts, and the order of design concepts. The Director of the United States Mint will submit the formal concept recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury (Secretary) for approval.

Step Four – Design Production
Upon Secretarial approval of the formal concept recommendations, the Mint will proceed to produce original quarter designs, focusing on aesthetic beauty, historical accuracy, appropriateness, and coinability. The Mint will collaborate with its legislated consultants and other subject matter experts as appropriate to ensure historical accuracy and proper representation with respect to candidate designs.

Step Five – Candidate Design Review
The Mint will present candidate designs, along with comments or recommendations from the legislated consultants, to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) for comment, and to the CCAC for review. The Mint will consider all comments and recommendations, and modify the candidate designs as appropriate.

Step Six – Final Selection
The Mint will present final candidate designs, along with recommendations from all stakeholders, to the Secretary for final design selection.

End.

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So … back here on the blog with you and me … I know about Maya Angelou, and Sally Ride, and Bessie Coleman, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Maria Tallchief, and Celia Cruz, and Vera Rubin. I know some stuff about those women, although I bet there is lots more that I don’t know about them. And I know almost nothing about the other women. I’ll be doing research online and visiting my local public library for sure.

Maya Angelou

Sally Ride

Bessie Coleman

Eleanor Roosevelt

Maria Tallchief

Celia Cruz

Vera Rubin

And so … with five women each year (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) there will be 20 women honored. My gosh, there are thousands of women who should be on those quarters. We’ve been listing and honoring men almost exclusively for more than two hundred years, in history books, on money, in the law, in construction, in politics, in computer/internet/digital technology, in medicine, in music, in education, in fire fighting, in science, in art, in psychology, in sports, in all facets of life. And yet, they are honoring just 20 women. I’m glad this is changing, but my gosh how slowly things change. But at least there are now 20 women honored for the 240+ years that the USA has been in existence.

By the way, that’s just one woman for every 12 years of our country’s existence. What about Harriet Tubman? Elaine Chao? Georgia O’Keeffe? Shirley Chisholm? Rachel Carson? Rosa Parks? Ada Lovelace? Even the website “USA Today” chooses 50-70 women each year, and I bet limiting it to that number of women is hard to do. Here is the link to their list of 2022 women who each contributed to the benefit of the world and to our individual benefit too.

As much as I greatly appreciate a few women being honored by the USA Mint, I must say I was disenchanted by the fact that the USA government/mint decided to put an image of George Washington on the FRONT side of these quarters, with the women’s images on the BACK of the coins, behind George. Why not use the dove of peace? Or an image of our planet? Or an eagle? Or the official flower of the USA … the rose? Sigh.

Life isn’t perfect is it? You can bet I will be collecting these quarters! And I’m grateful that these quarters are being produced.

How many of the 20 women listed above have you read about and/or know something about? How many have you even heard of? Every one of those women is super impressive! Bessie Coleman takes the cake for me, and Sally Ride too. How about you?