2010 America the Beautiful Quarter Designs

Next year the new America the Beautiful Quarters series will begin. The series will feature five different reverse designs depicting National Parks or sites, paired with a restored obverse portrait of George Washington. With the coming year now less than three months away, the US Mint recently released images of some of the design candidates for next year's quarters.

The five quarters scheduled to be released during 2010 will feature

-Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas
-Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming
-Yosemite National Park in California
-Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
-Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon

The slide show below presents the design candidates for each location.


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Personally, I have a difficult time mustering much enthusiasm for the designs. Some of them come across as desolate landscapes (in reality, I am sure they are breathtaking views of natural beauty). Some of the designs include animals, which seem to become the focus of attention and make the National Park merely seem like the background. During the course of the 12 year series, I also think that some designs will be difficult to differentiate based on the image- on the size of a quarter, one mountain or forest might look the same as any other.

On a more positive note, some of the designs have taken focus on a single element that can be representative for the location presented. I think the artists should try for this type of presentation whenever possible.

Any reader comments on the designs are welcomed in the comments section below.

Over at Coin Update News, you can read about the CFA's design recommendations and also get a collector's perspective on the series, which draws some comparisons between the upcoming America the Beautiful Quarters and the previous 50 State Quarters series.