Kansas’ buffalo quarter cover hits the market

Years ago, on a summer vacation in South Dakota, I came face to face with a buffalo.

Actually, I was inside an old station wagon with the rest of my family, quaking with fear at the thought of that beast suddenly charging and ramming our car with brute force.

But he just stood there, oblivious to everything except the cud he was chewing on.

It was the first time I’d ever seen one up close and it was kind of a surreal experience after having read about the animal and its significance in Native American culture. I wasn’t even sure they were real. They were the stuff of legend and seemed out of place in the modern world. Suddenly, I was transported back in time to a period when buffalo roamed the earth in great numbers.

Today, the buffalo are making a comeback, at least with regard to U.S. coinage. There was the new American Bison nickel, released earlier this year as part of the Westward Journey Nickel Series. And now we have a buffalo quarter.

It’s the new Kansas state quarter, the reverse of which features the state animal, a buffalo, and a sunflower motif. It was launched on Sept. 9.

And soon, on Sept. 26 to be exact, the Kansas State Quarter Official First Day Coin Cover is scheduled for release. Priced at $19.95, it comes with two Kansas state quarters mounted on a card with the date showing the first day of mintage. The product is limited to 50,000 and they went on sale Sept. 26 at noon. To order, visit www.usmint.gov or call (800) USA-MINT (872-6468).

On a completely different note, I’ve been receiving a lot of complaints about the legibility of the Mint Statistics boxes on our new Numismatic News Web site, www.numismaticnews.net.

Rest assured, we are aware of the problem and we are working on it. Without going into too much unnecessary detail, the problem is file size and getting it to a size so we can convert it for Web usage.

We hope to have the problem fixed in the coming weeks. Please bear with us.
As for the boxes themselves, take note: the 2005 Marine Corps 230th Anniversary silver dollar sellout we’ve been warning you of for weeks has finally happened.

Exact final figures have yet to be tallied. At last count, about 370,000 of the proof version and 130,000 of the uncirculated variety were sold. And as we reported last week, the American Legacy Collection sold out last week. The news broke just as we went to press so we weren’t able to place the asterisk by the entry in the boxes. It is there now.

Until then, write to me at Peter.Lindblad@fwpubs.com if you have any questions.