Mint unveils 2016 quarter designs

Five designs for the 2016 America the Beautiful circulating quarter and 5-ounce silver bullion coin have been released by the U.S. Mint. They comprise the seventh year of a program…

Five designs for the 2016 America the Beautiful circulating quarter and 5-ounce silver bullion coin have been released by the U.S. Mint.

They comprise the seventh year of a program that began in 2010 and will conclude in 2021.

The five designs for the 2016 America the Beautiful quarters.

First to be released will be the coin honoring Shawnee National Forest in Illinois. It depicts camel rock.

It was created by Artistic Infusion Artist Justin Kunz. It will be engraved by U.S. Mint sculptor-engraver Jim Licaretz.

Second design for the year will honor Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Done by AIP artist Barbara Fox, it shows a pioneer cradling a flintlock rifle. It will be executed by Mint sculptor-engraver Joseph Menna.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia will be honored by the third quarter in the 2016 sequence. It shows the building in which John Brown made his last stand in his 1859 raid of the city. The AIP artist is Thomas Hipschen and the Mint sculptor-engraver is Phoebe Hemphill.

North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park quarter will show the President astride a horse as he would have appeared when he was a rancher there in the 1880s.

AIP artist Joel Iskowitz and Mint sculptor-engraver teamed up to bring this to life.

The final design of 2016 honors Fort Moultrie at Fort Sumter National Monument. It shows Sgt. William Jasper retrieving the regimental flag while under bombardment from a British ship in Charleston Harbor in 1776 during the Revolutionary War.

The common obverse of all coins is the standard portrait of George Washington.

This article was originally printed in Numismatic News Express.
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• If you enjoy reading about what inspires coin designs, you'll want to check out Fascinating Facts, Mysteries & Myths about U.S. Coins.

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