Yosemite National Park Quarter Bags and Rolls

Today July 26, 2010, the United States Mint began sales of the 2010 Yosemite National Park Quarter bags and rolls. This represents the third release of the America the Beautiful Quarters Program.

The reverse design of the Yosemite Quarter features a view of El Capitan. This vertical rock formation rises 3,00 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor and is the largest monolith of granite in the world. The reverse was designed by Joseph Menna and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill. The obverse of the coin features a restored version of the portrait of George Washington designed by John Flanagan.

The US Mint is offering 100-coin bags of the newly released quarters from either the Philadelphia or Denver Mint. The bags have tags stating the mint of origin, "Yosemite", "CA" and the $25 face value of the contents. Bags are priced at $35.95 each.

A two roll set is also offered, which includes one 40-coin roll from the Philadelphia Mint and one 40-coin roll from the Denver Mint. The coins are packaged in US Mint branded wrappers, which indicate the mint of origin, "Yosemite", "CA", and $10 fave value of the contents. The two roll sets are priced at $32.95.

According to the US Mint, the Yosemite National Park Quarters bags and rolls will remain available for one year from the initial offering date. This prolonged availability period is a change of procedure from the prior State Quarter and DC & US Territories Quarters Programs. Bags and rolls for each design were only available until the next design was released.

Another change for the America the Beautiful Quarters Program is the introduction of the Bulk Purchase Program. This program allows orders to be placed for bulk bags of 200,000 quarters for the $50,000 face value plus a 3% processing fee. So far, the US Mint has reported 19.4 million quarters sold through the program.

When the America the Beautiful Quarters series first began, the potential for low mintages provided an interesting draw for collectors. Preliminary production figures do show mintages for the new series to be a fraction of the levels for the State Quarters Program. However, since the US Mint is providing prolonged availability for each release, the ability to bulk order, and the prospect that production can be restarted, the low mintages are difficult to get excited about.