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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Who Designed the 2022 Quarter?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"In addition to featuring five unique reverse designs each year, the American Quarters series will see a 90-year-old design of George Washington appear on the obverse designed by the female American sculptor and numismatic legend Laura Gardin Fraser. So, who was Gardin Fraser, and why was her design selected to appear on the 2022 Quarters? Keep reading to find out!"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Who was Laura Gardin Fraser?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Laura Gardin Fraser was a noted American Sculptor and the first woman to design a U.S. commemorative coin. Her 1921 Alabama Half Dollar, the 1922 Grant Gold Dollar and Half Dollar, the 1925 Fort Vancouver Centennial Half Dollar, and the 1928 U.S. Congressional Charles Lindbergh Commemorative Gold Medal are just some of her notable numismatic contributions.…
By Louis GolinoAsset Marketing Services, LLC (AMS), one of the largest direct-to-consumer retailers of collectible coins, announces that David J. Ryder, the former Director of the United States Mint, will advise the company on an exclusive basis.
Ryder will assist AMS exclusively with developing marketing and educational content, creating new collectibles and entering new international markets for its brands : GovMint.com, MCM (or ModernCoinMart) and LPM. Learn more about this exciting development here!
Only 37 people have served in the prestigious position of Director of the United States Mint since the Mint’s founding in April 1792. David J. Ryder is the only two-time director of the Mint in over a century. Ryder who recently resigned from the position effective October 1st, 2021, after being Mint Director since April 2018, previously held the role from September 1992 to November 1993.
On September 24, 2021, the Treasury Department announced that Alison Doone would serve as…
By Ray James
Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Early Life
Augustus St-Gaudens, the designer of some of the most beautiful gold coins ever struck, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1848. His family came to the United States shortly after his birth. He primarily grew up in New York City, where he apprenticed as a cameo cutter when he was a teenager. St. Gaudens studied at the famous Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. He would later enroll in the renowned École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Before returning to the United States, he studied in Rome, where he met Augusta Fisher Homer, his wife-to-be.
In the decades after his return to the United States, St. Gaudens built his considerable reputation on high profile sculptures placed in public parks and buildings. During this time, he took on students, among them were future numismatic designers. He taught James Earle Fraser, who would go on to design the Buffalo Nickel, Adolph A. Weinman, who would go on to create the Walking…
By Ray James
When John M. Mercanti retired as the 12th Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, he had accomplished one of the most storied careers in the Mint’s history. He had served as an engraver –sculptor for 37 years. The only engravers to serve longer were George T. Morgan at 48 years, William Barber at 47 years and Frank Gasparro at 39 years. Mercanti also designed, sculpted or engraved over 100 coin and medal designs, more than any other designer in the history of the U.S. Mint.
Mr. Mercanti’s U.S. Mint career began in 1974 in the pre-digital age when everything was done by hand and finished at the Mint in 2010 when most of the design work was done with the aid of digital technology. John Mercanti was born on April 27, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia College of Art and Fleisher Art Memorial School. Mr. Mercanti also served six years in the National Guard before joining the U.S. Mint. He served as…
By Louis Golino
A Brief Biography of Akiane Kramarik
Akiane Kramarik is a self-taught American artist, poet, and writer who began her career as a young child. For more than two decades her works have dazzled and inspired millions. They are not just remarkably mature for how old she was when she produced them, but they are also rooted in her deep sense of spirituality and her enduring commitment to her work. Like her art and poetry, her spirituality and relationship to God were also self-discovered.
She has been dubbed a genius and child prodigy, and more specifically as “the youngest binary prodigy in both realistic art and poetry in recorded history” because her accomplishments in both areas as a young child quickly surpassed that of most adults working in those fields.
Akiane describes herself as a “visionary journalist,” who reports through her art, poetry and writing on what she sees in both the physical and non-physical worlds.
In a 2014 interview in The…
Early Life of George T. Morgan
In 1845, George T. Morgan was born in Bilston, Staffordshire, England. During his adolescence and early adulthood, he was educated at the Birmingham Art School, and then was granted a national scholarship to the South Kensington Art School. He continued his education at the South Kensington School for two years where he received numerous awards and prizes. While in England, Morgan was employed by The British Royal Mint in London under J.S. and A.B. Wyon, a family that had produced generations of engravers for the Tower Mint. Morgan was greatly respected in his position as an assistant engraver and would have been positioned nicely to move up in the ranks. However, the Wyon family's long standing relationship with the Tower Mint kept them in employment and their sons employed as well. Morgan's fate changed when the United States Mint Director, H.R. Linderman, sent a letter to the London Mint Director, Charles W. Fremantle around 1876. Linderman…