The Arizona State Quarter is Released
Monday June 2, 2008
The Arizona State Quarter was officially released today during a grand ceremony for what the U.S. Mint calls a "Grand Quarter." All of the grandiosity is, of course, because Arizona is the Grand Canyon State. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy led the public celebration of the release of the 48th quarter in the Statehood Quarter series. The release event took place this morning (Monday, June 2) at the State Capitol Senate Lawn at 10:00 am in Phoenix. The primary entertainment was provided by a Mariachi band, and as always at these events, all the kids in the crowd got a free quarter to commemorate the big day.The Arizona Quarter design is an interesting one in that it seems to represent a "compromise design" rather than a bold statement. In pre-design opinion polls (as reported by the Arizona Republic newspaper,) the Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University found that about 25% of the state's residents would like to see the Grand Canyon featured on the Arizona State Quarter, with the Saguaro Cactus placing second at 19%. Yet, when the more than 4,200 design concepts began rolling into Arizona Quarter Commission, 36% of them featured the Saguaro Cactus, with the Grand Canyon making the cut in only 14%!
The topics of the five finalist designs stacked up like this: Grand Canyon, Saguaro Cactus, Grand Canyon and Saguaro Cactus, Navajo Code Talkers, and the Powell Expedition. In public voting for the final coin, most of the votes went to the first three designs, with the compromise design winning the day.
Was it too much to ask to try to put the entire Grand Canyon onto a one-inch round piece of metal AND throw in the Saguaro Cactus for good measure? Take a look at the final product (see photo) and decide for yourself! Then tell me what you think via the "comments" link below. For my part, I think Arizona Quarter designer Joel Iskowitz did an amazing job of the nearly impossible!
Photo courtesy of the United States Mint.
Comments
Interesting article on the quarters I would think all quarters are out now or are there still more coming?
messy and nonflowing the interruptions show you cannot and should not try to please ererybody