CFA selects 2017 quarter designs
The question of what coin designs will honor Iowa’s Effigy Mounds and New Jersey’s Ellis Island National Monuments continues.
The Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) met Feb. 18 to review revised submissions for the two 2017 America the Beautiful quarters. The commission’s recommendations are different than the designs selected by the Citizen’s Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) during their Feb. 16 meeting. Both groups reviewed the same pool of applicants.
The CFA recommended both designs 13 (left) and 14 (right) for the Effigy Mounds quarter.
For the Effigy Mounds quarter, the CFA selected designs IA-13 and IA-14. They noted the two similar depictions use an abstract representation that will show off the mounds better on a small coin than a pictorial image.
The commission suggested using relief and detailing when sculpting the design to reflect the form and texture of the mounds.
The CCAC decided upon IA-09 during their meeting, a design preferred by the Effigy Mounds superintendent.
A new Ellis Island design, 06 (left), was chosen by the CFA over their previous selection of 01 (right)
With the Ellis Island quarter, the CFA selected a different design than what was chosen during their Oct. 15, 2015 meeting. Design NJ-06 was selected this time, which depicts an immigrant family abroad a ship arriving at Ellis Island.
The design was commended as a powerful design for showing the family from the rear, generalizing the immigrants from any one particular group.
The commission had previously selected design NJ-01. A variation of NJ-01 was chosen by the CCAC during their Feb. 16 meeting. For more information on the CCAC’s quarter selections, visit http://www.numismaticnews.net/article/ccac-chooses-quarters.
Both the CFA and CCAC design choices will be forwarded to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew for consideration.
The Effigy Mounds and Ellis Island coins will be respectively the first and fourth of five quarter releases throughout 2017.
This article was originally printed in Numismatic News Express.
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