The United States Mint yesterday unveiled the official designs for the final six coins in the America the Beautiful Quarters Program.
Included in the first five designs which will appear on the tails of quarters set for release in 2020 is one honoring the National Park of American Samoa.
The design is by Richard Masters and the Sculptor-Engraver is Phebe Hemphill.
The coin depicts a Samoan Fruit Bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup evoking the remarkable care and energy that this species puts into their offspring.
The design is intended to promote awareness of the species’ threatened status due to habitat loss and commercial hunting. The National Park of American Samoa is the only park in the United States that is home to the Samoan Fruit Bat. Inscriptions are “NATIONAL PARK,” “AMERICAN SAMOA,” “2020,” and “E PLURIBUS UNUM.”
The unveiling of the winning designs took place at the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.
Other designs will honor Weir Farm National Historic Site (Connecticut), Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (U.S. Virgin Islands), Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park (Vermont), and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (Kansas).
The design for the sixth and final coin in the program will honor the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Alabama, which is set for release in 2021.
Artists in the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) created the designs, which the Mint’s sculptor-engravers sculpted.
