Masters of Coin Design: Emily S. Damstra

The Boys Town Silver Commemorative Coin celebrated the 100th anniversary of Boys Town, an organization dedicated to caring for children and families. Damstra designed the obverse and reverse of the silver dollar, which features the inscription: "When you help a child today…you write the history of tomorrow." Damstra would also win a Coin of the Year (COTY) award for her work on this design.

The Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coins featured three coin types—gold, silver, and clad—each with a unique design focused on the ongoing battle against breast cancer. Damstra designed the gold, silver, and clad coins, which depict the generational impact of breast cancer with an image of a young woman standing next to an older woman on the reverse and a butterfly symbolic of hope on the obverse.

The Christa McAuliffe Commemorative Coin honors the teacher and astronaut who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster. Damstra's Silver Dollar reverse design features a group of students reaching toward the sky, representing McAuliffe's lasting influence.

2019 Native American Dollar Coin

Emily Damstra's 2019 Native American Dollar Coin is part of the U.S. Mint's ongoing Native American $1 Coin Program. Damstra designed the reverse, commemorating Mary Golda Ross—a Native American aerospace engineer pioneer—and Native Americans' historical contributions to space missions with images of a rocket and an astronaut and inscriptions of complex math equations.

America the Beautiful Quarters

Emily Damstra designed two coins for the "America the Beautiful Quarters" series, a collection of 56 U.S. Mint-issued quarters highlighting a significant natural or historic site in all U.S. states and territories. The program celebrated America's beauty, history, and the cultural significance of her national treasures.

Damstra's 2019 Idaho Quarter design features the inscription "river of no return" and depicts an individual navigating the Salmon River. Her 2020 Kansas Quarter design features the state's sweeping prairies and the inscription "tallgrass prairie."

American Innovation Coin Program

Emily Damstra also contributed to the American Innovation $1 Coin Program, a U.S. Mint series honoring innovations and innovators from all U.S. states and territories. Damstra's 2019 Georgia coin design commemorates the Trustees' Garden, America's first experimental agricultural garden. Her 2020 Massachusetts design celebrates Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone with a depiction of his first working model.

Type II American Silver Eagle Reverse

Perhaps Damstra's most famous work is the Type 2 American Eagle Silver Coin reverse, which debuted in mid-2021 and will appear on the iconic Silver Eagle series moving forward. Her reverse design features an eagle in mid-flight with an oak branch in its talons, symbolizing strength, endurance, and resilience. Damstra's attention to detail shines in this design, immortalizing one of America's most enduring symbols in grand fashion.

American Women Quarters™ Program

The American Women Quarters™ Program is a U.S. Mint coin series honoring American women who have significantly contributed to civil rights politics, service, and other fields. To date, Emily Damstra provided four unique designs to the program.

Damstra's first American Women Quarter 2022 design honors Maya Angelou, a renowned poet, author, and civil rights activist. Damstra depicts Angelou with her arms outstretched, a gesture of freedom, with a flying bird in the background, a reference to her iconic poem "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

The second 2022 design features Anna May Wong, the first Asian American woman to receive international recognition for acting. Emily Damstra's coin shows a striking portrait of Anna May Wong in her iconic pose with her name engraved on it.

Damstra's third contribution to the program commemorates Edith Kanaka'ole, a Hawaiian icon who preserved and promoted Hawaiian traditions through hula and native chanting. Kanaka'ole's hair and lei billow in the wind next to an inscription of some words from her chant, symbolizing her successful promotion of Hawaiian culture.

Damstra's 2024 American Women Quarter design highlights Pauli Murray, a key figure in the women's rights movement and co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). The coin depicts Murray's powerful portrait and the word "hope."

Damstra's 2023 grizzly design features a grizzly bear towering over the viewer as if seen from the ground. The coin design pays homage to the formidable apex predator, the bear, highlighting its awe-inducing features through impressive Ultra High Relief strikes and an exceptionally detailed design created by Damstra.

The North American Apex Predator, the cougar, stars in the second Ultra High Relief (UHR) release in the Great Hunters series.  Cougars are impressive predators blessed with excellent vision, sharp senses, sharper claws, and even sharper teeth. Damstra has captured those aspects of this apex predator with a design that shows a sleek and powerful cougar stalking its prey along a rocky ledge in Canada's mountainous wilderness!