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2022 American Women Quarters: Demand Outstripped Mint Projections

2022 American Women Quarters: Demand Outstripped Mint Projections

By Louis Golino


The Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, Public Law 116-330, signed into law by President Donald J. Trump on January 3, 2020, is a wide-ranging law that creates several new coin programs. The first one to be launched was the American Women Quarters program, a four-year program of circulating collectible quarters that honor the accomplishments of a diverse range of American women. Up to five different coins will be issued each year.

Each woman honored will appear on the reverse, and each coin will share a common obverse. For the first time, the obverse features the right-facing portrait of George Washington created by famous American sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser that was recommended as the design for the 1932 quarter intended to mark the bicentennial of Washington's birth. However, then-Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon instead selected the left-facing portrait by John Flanagan used from then until 2020.

The legislation specifies that the women selected for these coins represent trailblazers in fields that include but are not limited to suffrage, civil rights, the abolitionist movement, government, science, space, and the arts and that they come from diverse ethnic and geographic backgrounds.

American Women Quarters Design Selection

As for the design selection process, last year, the public had an opportunity to submit suggestions through a web portal maintained by the National Women's History Museum. The Treasury Secretary selects the women in consultation with that organization, the American Women's History Initiative, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women's Caucus. The Mint then assembles a team of people who are liaisons from those entities and other federal agencies, the National Academy of Sciences and National Archives and Records Administration, which develops initial design concepts that are further refined by working with the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. Once the Secretary approves the design concepts based on that work, the Mint's artists create designs that the CCAC and Commission of Fine Arts review, the final designs are ultimately selected after considering the recommendations of both groups. There is also input from family members and those designated to represent each honoree.

2022 kicked off with the Maya Angelou quarter that honors the renowned African-American poet, writer, Broadway star, and social activist. Her quarter shows her with her arms outstretched with a rising sun and a bird in flight behind her to evoke her famous book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Huge Demand and New Customers

This coin and because of it, the entire series got a huge boost thanks to mainstream press coverage, including television news, websites, and newspapers. Oprah Winfrey highlighted the coin on her television program. In addition, the U.S. Mint modified its marketing program by shifting the focus from just collecting the new coins to seeing the new series, as Kirk Gillis, the Mint's Deputy Associate Director for Marketing, told Coin Week recently: "….as an opportunity for role models to engage the young women in their lives in the stories of these trailblazing American women and what they represent. Combined with incredible media and influencer coverage, product sales blew away expected demand. All that publicity created widespread awareness of the program, which greatly enhanced paid advertising performance, and enabled the USM [United States Mint] to engage a lot of women as first-time customers."

When the Mint was developing its estimated demand projections for the new program, it thought they would "remain relatively flat with the final years of the America the Beautiful Quarters program," Gillis noted, when demand proved much stronger.

In addition, most of those coins, as well as much of the supply of 2022 Dr. Sally Ride quarters that honor the first American female to go to space sold in advance of the March 22 release of bags and rolls through product enrollments, which the Mint has been promoting strongly, especially since last year.

The remaining 2022 quarters will honor Wilma Mankiller (the first woman to be the first principal chief of the Cherokee Nation) that goes on sale at the Mint on June 14; Nona Ottero Warren (New Mexico suffragist and first female to serve as a Santa Fe school superintendent) that goes on sale this summer; and Anna May Wong, the legendary film star, that goes on sale this fall.

The Mint also sold out very quickly of the Proof sets of these quarters that went on sale on March 8 (clad version) and March 29 (silver version), also primarily through product enrollments.

The Mint announced that it would not be striking more quarters to allow it to produce more of those sets, but the annual Proof Set and Silver Proof Set of all circulating 2022 coinage should include those coins. On May 4, the Mint said through its spokesman Michael White, "Although we did not set a mintage limit [for the silver quarter set] to allow for the potential to produce more, circumstances precluded us from doing so. We do not plan to make additional American Women Quarters 2022 Silver Proof Sets."

The circumstances alluded to in those comments seem to suggest that the Mint must now begin preparing for the 2023-coin production.

Asked if speculation seemed to play a significant role in the high demand for these coins, as some numismatic bloggers have suggested in coin forums, Mr. Gills, the U.S. Mint marketing official, said he did not think so, stressing that the new quarters have brought in many new customers who were attracted by those coins. As for demand, he said the Mint is now working to ensure it can meet the demand for the 2023 coins.

2023 American Women Quarters Honorees

On March 30, the Mint announced the five women who will be featured on the 2023 American Women Quarters. They are:

  • Bessie Coleman, who was the first African-American and Native American pilot.
  • Edith Kanakóle, a Hawaiian composer, dancer, and teacher whose work helped to preserve Hawaiian culture.
  • Eleanor Roosevelt (former first lady to Franklin D. Roosevelt, niece of President Teddy Roosevelt, and prominent social activist who served on the United Nations Human Rights Commission and General Assembly.
  • Jovita Idar, a Mexican-American journalist, activist, and suffragist who fought against segregation and injustice.
  • Maria Tallchief, a famous Native American dancer, was the first American prima ballerina.

On April 19, the CCAC met to review the candidate designs from the Mint for the 2023 coins and made its recommendations. Two days later, the CFA (the second design committee) met and made different recommendations for two of the coins (for Coleman and Kanakóle) and the same ones as the CCAC for Roosevelt, Idar, and Tallchief. Tallchief will also be honored on a Native American $1 coin in 2023, and both groups recommended the same design for that issue.

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