Weir Farm National Historic Site Quarter Design Finalized

Weir Farm quarter final designOn August 13, 2019, the U.S. Mint announced the final design for the Weir Farm National Historic Site at the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money in Rosemont, IL. Chosen was Justin Kunz’s design showing an artist in a long smock, painting at an easel set up outside Julian Alden Weir’s rustic studio at Weir Farm in Connecticut. The reverse design includes the inscription a national park for art, the year of issue: 2020, and the motto: e pluribus unum.

The Weir Farm National Historic Site quarter is the second release in 2020 and 52nd in the series that honors a national park or historic site in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the 5 U.S. territories. Overlapping the towns of Ridgefield and Wilton, CT, the Weir Farm National Historic Site is located half way between Danbury and Norwalk, and near the New York State border.

Weir Farm National Historic Site Quarter Candidate Designs

Weir Farm National Historic Site Quarter Candidate Designs

The U.S. Mint commissioned its artists to create candidate designs for the Weir Farm National Historic Site quarter; 15 were reviewed for accuracy, edited, finalized and presented in June 2018. The Citizen Coinage Advisory Committee and the Commission of Fine Arts asked for revisions to seven of them and a resubmission.

Liaisons from the historic site favored two of the seven designs. One featured an artist in a long smock painting outside Julian Alden Weir’s rustic studio. The other depicted a portable easel holding a canvas with an artist’s painting of the Weir house and studio portrayed in greater detail than the rest of the design.

Of the remaining five designs, one showed a stone wall in front of the Weir house. In the right foreground, a French easel featured a canvas depicting Weir’s studio. In another design, an easel with the beginnings of a painting of Weir’s studio was placed in front of the studio itself.

A third design showed an artist in a short smock painting outside Weir’s studio.

The remaining two designs were variations of the portable easel holding a canvas with the artist’s painting of the Weir house and studio portrayed in greater detail than the rest of the design.

On all, the inscription “National Park for the Arts” was included.

Overlapping the towns of Ridgefield and Wilton, CT, the Weir Farm National Historic Site is located half way between Danbury and Norwalk, and near the New York State border.

Weir Farm National Historic Site featured 52nd in National Park Quarter Series

Weir Farm and Studio

Straddling Wilton and Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Weir Farm National Historic Site is a 68-acre cultural landscape established in 1990. Its manmade panorama features 15 historic structures, including houses, barns, studios and outbuildings. Its natural landscape is characterized by bedrock outcroppings, historic gardens, stone terraces, specimen trees, orchards, fields, miles of stone laid walls and a pond. Best of all, it has hundreds of historic painting sites – all expertly preserved. The artistic tradition launched here by American impressionist painter Julian Alden Weir in 1882 is kept alive through a variety of Art in the Park programs, including an artist-in-residence program, free art supplies, night painting and art lessons.

Learn more about the Weir Farm National Historic Site.

2020 National Park of American Samoa quarter released

The new National Park of American Samoa quarter, 51st in the series and first of five to debut in 2020, is in circulation as of February 3rd.

U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program artist Richard Masters designed and Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill sculpted the National Park of American Samoa coin, which features a Samoan fruit bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup on the reverse. Masters’ design is intended to promote awareness to the species’ threatened status due to habitat loss and hunting. The obverse features the 1932 portrait of George Washington designed by John Flanagan.

The other 2020 quarters also honor America’s most popular national parks: Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, CT; Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands; Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, VT, and the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve based in Strong City, KS.

This detailed National Park of American Samoa quarter can be nicely paired with the 2009 Statehood quarter for American Samoa. Order today.

National Park of American Samoa Quarter design finalized

Final design for the American Samoa quarter

National Park of American Samoa quarter design

On August 13, 2019, the U.S. Mint announced the final design for the National Park of American Samoa quarter at the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money in Rosemont, IL.

U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program artist Richard Masters designed and Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill sculpted the National Park of American Samoa coin’s reverse. Masters’s design shows a Samoan fruit bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup. It is intended to promote awareness to the species’ threatened status due to habitat loss and hunting. Listed as a protected species, the Samoan fruit bat can have a wing span of up to three feet. It is sometimes called a flying fox, and flies during the day as well as at night.

The inscriptions on the coin’s reverse include the name and location of the site: American Samoa; the year of issue: 2020, and the motto: e pluribus unum.

The obverse features the 1932 portrait of George Washington designed by John Flanagan.

This detailed quarter pairs nicely with the 2009 Statehood quarter, which featured cultural artifacts and tropical foliage native to Samoa. At 51st in the series overall, the National Park of American Samoa quarter will be followed by a design honoring the Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, CT.