A Long Journey to a Foreign Time: The Ancient 50 States Quarters Program

Preface

In addition to facilitating commerce, coinage also serves as a durable record of human civilization. Many ancient cultures and governments would be unknown to us if we did not have their coins. Historians use numismatic items along with other historical resources to comment upon and illustrate these defunct civilizations. But what will historians say about the United States of America in another millennium? This essay presents one possible scenario, evaluating the 50 States Quarters Program from the perspective of a future numismatic scholar. Since obviously the year 3001 is not yet upon us, I must take some literary license when making predictions. I do not dare claim that any of my extrapolations will be vindicated; in fact, most of them will probably be proven false. Rather, I hope to remind us that our present actions will have significant, yet unknown, ramifications on future generations and that we should all be mindful of our legacy. A Long Journey to a Foreign Time:
The Ancient 50 States Quarters Program
Published on the Archives site of the International Numismatist Alliance,
Posted at 1215 GMT, November 22, 3001

Throughout the entire spectrum of ancient coinage, from the denarius of a Roman Emperor boasting of military victory, to the numerous issues of the Republic of Liberia immortalizing seemingly everything, even an American movie release, nations have recorded major events and accomplishments on their metal coinage.

Of course, we do not perpetuate this practice, coinage having been abolished for hundreds of years. In the case of the United States 50 States Quarters Program, the United States Congress was the only body that could initiate it because the United States Constitution of 1789 gave the federal government the exclusive power to mint coins. This was due to the failure of the earlier organizing document, the Articles of the Confederation. Under that looser political system, every state made its own currency. Unfortunately, this made interstate commerce clumsy and ineffective. Later, the United States used a decimal system of currency, in which each unit, the dollar, was divided into 100 cents. This system worked well and was used until 2132 when the U.S. joined the Global Coalition and adopted its electronic system of trade. Nobel Prize laureate in economics Jake Gerberson recounted the painful transition:

The United States stubbornly refused to ratify the Global Trade Agreement. The Senate rejected the treaty five times over a period of thirty years. American business leaders were very effective at persuading legislators that the international trade regime regulated private corporations so much that they would be incapable of earning a satisfactory profit. Republican Majority Leader Mary Sand denounced the heavy corporate tax provisions by calling the pact the "Global Pay-to-Trade Agreement." However, the United States soon became incapable of trading with other nations, and this self-induced embargo forced America to surrender, but not after quadrillions of dollars of lost income. (Gerberson, Economic Armageddon: The American Capitalist System vs. Globalization)

Thus, the approximately 2700 year-old reign of coinage as the medium of trade ended, and computers ascended to the monetary throne.

Numismatics as a hobby and an industry sustained a major blow when the U.S. Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing were dissolved and numismatic items ceased to be produced. Without new supplies of collector coins or coins in circulation to pique the general populace's interest, numismatics became much more esoteric than it was in the 20^th century. Of course, collectors continued to accumulate credit cards and other pieces of plastic used in trade, but soon these, too, became obsolete.

30^th century numismatists have no experience with "spending" coins or other tangible units of trade as their recent ancestors did, and most would probably not wish to revert back to those primitive methods. Coins and currency were very insecure: one could easily lose them or have them stolen. Large amounts of money represented by pounds of silver or gold would also be rather cumbersome to transport. However, we must concede that any coin, debit card or currency note is much more aesthetically attractive than our multi-digit personal identification number and biometric signature.

However, in the 20^th and 21^th centuries, numismatic items commemorating momentous people, places and events were alive and well. In 1997, every coin carried the portrait of a deceased president and many coins were produced for sale to contemporary numismatists to finance certain organizations or projects. Nonetheless, the 50 States Quarters Program was unprecedented in United States numismatic history. Though the United States' northern neighbor, Canada, had featured its provinces on its quarter earlier, at no time before this program had all members of the Union been commemorated on federal coinage.

The program had its official beginnings in 1996, when the United States' federal legislature, the Congress, passed Public Law 104-329, the United States Commemorative Coin Act of 1996. In that legislation was a directive to the Department of the Treasury to study the feasibility of giving all 50 states a quarter upon which to put their design.

The Treasury's report was very positive. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin wrote:

The study, through extensive polling and market research, concluded that there was a substantial degree of interest and public acceptance for the program. Having said this, I believe that the natural reflection of the will of the people lies with their representatives in the Congress. Therefore, if Congress directs that we should proceed with the 50 State Commemorative Quarter Program, the Department of the Treasury stands ready to implement it. (Rubin, Treasury Department Letter of Support, October 31, 1997 to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs)

Rubin's letter also noted "The program has clear economic advantages to the government, with between $2.6 and $5.1 billion over ten years of projected savings." This revenue was based upon projections that a large majority of Americans would collect the coins, thus removing them from circulation. The government would not have to redeem them and thereby collect the seignorage.

Members of both chambers of the Congress, the Senate and House of Representatives, proposed legislation authorizing the 50 States Quarters Program. The Congress of this time is well known by present-day political scientists for partisan gridlock that threatened government operation. However, the bill that was ultimately enacted (S. 1228) sailed through the assembly with relative ease. Having been introduced in the Senate on September 26, 1997, the bill had acquired a favorable report and was passed November 9. The House responded quickly and passed the bill on November 13. President Bill Clinton, the second and last president to be impeached, signed the bill into law on December 1, 1997.

Clearly, the measure had great support. In deliberations on the bill, the only objections expressed were related to another provision added to the bill. These sections mandated a new gold-colored one-dollar coin. In fact, Representative Jim Kolbe stated in his remarks that he enthusiastically supported the quarter program but said the golden dollar was doomed to fail unless its paper counterpart was eliminated. The future would prove this politician correct: despite an aggressive campaign to integrate the golden dollar coin into circulation, the public rejected it (see Frogger, "Why the Sacagawea Dollar only was Gold for Fools," The Numismatist, April 2015). If only the dollar could have had the same success as the commemorative quarters.

Once the legislation was passed in 1997, the United States Mint proceeded swiftly with establishing the 50 States Quarters Program. By the beginning of 1999, the first quarter, Delaware's was released into circulation.

The state to be honored on each quarter created the design concepts. The governor of the state recommended designs and forwarded them to the federal Fine Arts Commission and Citizen's Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee. After clearing all bureaucratic obstacles, the Secretary of the Treasury finally approved one design.

In the first three years, of the program the general populace was made a part of the process immediately. Most states established bodies to consider and recommend ideas often suggested by citizens. Massachusetts allowed only children to propose designs.

Nebraska's process for selecting its mark on the national coinage is a good example of what other states did.

In the 2001 session of Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, Legislative Bill 706 was enacted. It established the Nebraska State Quarter Design Committee. Consisting of various officials and experts in numismatics, sculptural art and Nebraska history, the committee received design submissions from the public and recommended them to the governor, who then participated in the federal process articulated above.

The committee was inundated with suggestions from people hoping to put their mark on American money. Propositions ranged from University of Nebraska football (the college had a very good team, winning several national championships. The sport, though it was condemned as barbaric in the Social Revolution of 2450, has experienced a recent resurgence in popularity), landscape scenes, and famous personages. A daily news publication, the Omaha World-Herald, opined in an editorial "Devising Nebraska's quarter will be a challenge, but a delightful one…let the debate begin." (Omaha World-Herald, April 6, 2001)

Debate over the design was quite lively, and the hearings the committee held frequently went many hours overtime because so many people wished to express their thoughts on the designs. Several of the committee members resigned, saying that the public service was disrupting their lives. One member exclaimed halfway through a meeting "This is ridiculous. These people are crazy! It is just a quarter!" Such are the casualties of an overzealous democracy.

For whatever reason, whether the public participation or the historical significance or the regional pride associated with one's state, the 50 States Quarters Program was a complete success. The United States Mint posted a $2.6 billion profit in 2000; the low end of congressional projections for a 10-year program had been achieved in one year. According to surveys conducted in 2001, 64 percent of the United States' adult population was saving the commemorative quarters. This increased demand forced the Mint to significantly augment its production of quarters, going from a pre-1999 average of 1.5 billion coins to 6.5 billion in 2001. Due to such large production figures, any present-day numismatist knows that the commemorative quarters are common, even many centuries after their issue.

So even though these coins are not particularly valuable as collectibles, they certainly provide excellent illustrations of United States history. For example, the quarter for New Jersey, which was issued in 1999, displays a metallic interpretation of Emmanuel Leutze's 1851 painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware," a piece of art then in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. That painting was destroyed in the 2005 New York City Insurrection, along with many other artistic works. The picture of George Washington crossing the river during the Revolutionary War may have fallen into obscurity had the quarters not kept the image in the public eye.

Today the United States of America is still regarded as one of the great superpowers of history, rivaling the Roman Empire and the Middle East Confederacy. What made the Union great was the contribution of each individual state. Like a choir, with its individual singers adding their voices, we see that the U.S. was only as good as the sum of its parts. Surely the Congress and the American people understood this idea when they memorialized for eternity each and every part that constituted the United States of America.

*Frogger, Jon. "Why the Sacagewea Dollar was only Gold for Fools" The Numismatist. Colorado Springs: American Numismatic Association. April 2015.

*Gerberson, Jake. Economic Armageddon: The American Capitalist System vs. Globalization. Published online on Conservative Press website. Posted 1136 GMT May 26, 2990.

Nebraska Legislature Website: www.unicam.state.ne.us

Omaha World-Herald. "Tails, It's Nebraska" Editorial. Omaha: April 6, 2001 pp.8

*State of Nebraska. Proceedings of the Nebraska State Quarter Design Committee. Lincoln: University Press. 2006.

Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Senate Report 105-130. Washington: October 31, 1997.

United States Congress. Congressional Record. Washington: November 9 and 13, 1997.

United States Mint Website: www.usmint.gov

*Indicates fictitious source.