State Quarters Program Ends, New Programs Begin

D.C. and Territorial Quarters, New Lincoln Pennies to Come in 2009

Dec 24, 2008

After ten years, the U.S. Mint has finally commemorated all 50 states on the reverse of a 25-cent piece. But new coins are coming in the next twelve months.

An exciting decade for coin collectors in America comes to an end this month as the currently circulating Hawaii coin is the final installment in the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program. However, in 2009 the U.S. Mint will extend the collection by introducing six new quarters and, for the first time since 1959, brand new one-cent designs.

The State Quarters Program began in 1999 with the release of the Delaware coin and continued for an entire decade, commemorating each of the 50 states in the order they were admitted to the Union.

According to a November, 2007 Associated Press article, an estimated 147 million people have been pressing state quarters into coin album slots, with U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy calling them “the most successful coins in United States history.”

D.C. and Territories Commemorated

Throughout 2009, the reverse of the quarter will change six times and feature images commemorating the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. The obverse of the coin will remain unchanged.

The first quarter in this year-long program depicts Duke Ellington, a native of Washington, D.C. and an influential figure in jazz music, sitting at a piano above an inscription of the district’s motto, Justice for All. This coin celebrates the Federal district that became the nation's capital on December 1, 1800.

An historic San Juan sentry box and hibiscus flower represent Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth since 1952, in the second quarter, while the outline of the island of Guam graces the reverse of the third release.

The second half of 2009 will honor what are arguably considered the lesser-known U.S. territories. American Samoa is represented by items from the ava ceremony, considered the most significant traditional event in Samoan culture, and the official bird and flower of the U.S. Virgin Islands appear on the fifth coin in the program.

The final territory quarter to be released commemorates the Northern Mariana Islands, a group of 15 islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The reverse of the quarter features a limestone support column from indigenous Chamorro structures, two white fairy tern birds and a canoe.

Along with the six new quarter designs, the U.S. Mint will issue four new designs for the Lincoln penny “in recognition of the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent” (www.usmint.gov).

This marks the first change to the penny since the Lincoln Memorial replaced the reverse featuring two wheat stalks in 1959.

The new designs, issued at three-month intervals throughout the year, depict Lincoln’s childhood, formative years, professional life in Illinois and his presidency.

At the conclusion of the year-long program, the cent will not revert back to its old design but will instead feature a new reverse image, as yet unannounced, commemorating President Lincoln.

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