The Royal Mint celebrates 50th Anniversary of Pride with rainbow 50p

Jun 9, 2022 | ,

The Royal Mint has today launched a commemorative 50p celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pride UK. The coin marks the first time Britain’s LGBTQ+ community has been celebrated on official UK coinage, developed in collaboration with Pride in London. Five million coins will also enter general circulation later this year, making the landmark design accessible to all.

The 50p design, revealed by The Royal Mint last month, features Pride in London’s values of Protest, Visibility, Unity, and Equality in rainbows on the reverse (tails) of the coin. With state-of-the-art colour printing technology, the iconic colours of the Pride progression flag are recreated with special-edition colour versions of the silver and brilliant uncirculated coins.

Following an LGBTQ+ art exhibition hosted by Pride UK, The Royal Mint invited participating artists to submit entries in a competition to create a reverse design for a coin celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pride UK. The winning submission selected by The Royal Mint Advisory Committee was the work of Dominique Holmes, an east London artist, writer, and LGBTQ+ activist with a varied artistic background that includes tattoo artistry.

Speaking about their design, Dominique Holmes said: “Working to the scale of a 50 pence piece was interesting for me as I’m used to working on a larger scale. The main challenge was ensuring that the important messages of protest and visibility could be clearly understood on the coin. I had to keep a 50p next to me at all times as I worked to keep my sketches in check!

“Seeing the design and the message of Protest and Pride on the coin itself was quite moving. Growing up in the 80s and 90s in the UK, I never saw this sort of positive LGBTQ+ representation, and I feel very proud to have worked on something that celebrates and commemorates such an historic moment for the LGBTQ+ community and the Pride movement so publicly.

“This is a significant milestone in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Pride means so much to me and to so many people across the UK and beyond, and it’s important that we take time to celebrate the progress made over the last 50 years, whilst continuing the important work for our community.”

Nicola Howell, Chief Commercial Officer at The Royal Mint said: “It has been a pleasure working with Dominique on the 50th Anniversary of Pride coin. Their design is a fitting tribute to the legacy of Pride UK, and we know how excited collectors will be to find one in their change. We are always looking to work with talented British artists from a range of backgrounds who are passionate about bringing their own diverse experiences to life on an official UK coin.”

The launch of the new LGBTQ+ coin forms part of The Royal Mint’s wider commitment to diversity and inclusion. Alongside D&I training for all employees, a network of D&I Champions and employee-led LGBTQ+ society, ‘Enfys’, employees from The Royal Mint will be marching in the Pride in London parade on 2nd of July to show their support to the LGBTQ+ community.

As part of the launch, The Royal Mint will make a financial contribution to London LGBT Community Pride C.I.C. The 50p will be available to purchase via The Royal Mint website and includes gold, silver, and brilliant uncirculated versions.

PCGS Launches Pack Grading and New Small-Size Holders for Banknotes

Jun 8, 2022 |

PCGS begins grading full and half packs of U.S. small-size notes and unveils a new holder for smaller notes.

(Santa Ana, California – June 8, 2022) Professional Coin Grading Service (www.PCGS.com) has officially launched pack grading for those who wish to submit their banknote packs for encapsulation. The innovative PCGS pack holders, which allow for half (50) or full (100) consecutive serial-numbered banknotes to be encapsulated in a single holder, are ideal for grading banknote packs whose historic or collectible significance is better maintained by keeping the notes physically together. 

“The benefit of grading an entire pack of banknotes rather than individual notes has a lot to do with certain collectible characteristics that are unique to packs of banknotes, such as keeping together a run of notes with consecutive numbers, consecutive Star Notes, and the like,” explains PCGS President Stephanie Sabin. “There are even cases where a pack of notes may be historical or collectible for other reasons, such as having an origin associated with a bank hoard, a notable collector, or other numismatically significant factors.” She adds, “pack grading is similar to how some people collect sealed packs of trading cards and how those are often holdered in a single pack – it preserves their collectability in a way that might be lost if the items are separated and encapsulated individually.” 

In addition to the rollout of pack grading, PCGS also unveils its new small-size note holder.

“Collector and dealer feedback led to our decision that we should provide a holder specifically designed for these notes,” remarks Sabin. “So many of the submissions we received are U.S. small-size notes, Fractional and postage currency, and other notes from around the world that are smaller than the large-size notes our holders were designed to accommodate. With these new holders, PCGS offers a right-sized solution for a wide variety of banknotes.” 

Director of PCGS Banknote Joe Pielago explains, “PCGS is always looking for the best solutions to provide the ideal holder for some of the smallest and most unusual notes. We are proud to innovate our offerings to the market to continue providing premium products. We are always listening to customer feedback, and this was another offering the market requested that we are excited to provide.” 

All PCGS Banknote holders will continue to include anti-counterfeiting Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology, which PCGS introduced to the numismatic industry to ensure future buyers and collectors that the contents of their holders are as stated on the labels. 

Since 1986, PCGS has proven a successful track record for introducing new products and solutions to the market, and the pack holder is no exception. Earlier this year, the very first pack to be encapsulated in the new multi-note holder was a full 100-note consecutively numbered pack of Series 1934A $500 Federal Reserve Notes. Submitted by U.S. Coins of Houston, Texas, and pedigreed to the prestigious Taylor Family Collection, it is one of the oldest-surviving packs of banknotes and presumably the only pack of $500 notes known in existence. Before being submitted to PCGS for crossover service, these notes were each encapsulated and graded individually by another grading service.

Currently, pack grading is available for U.S. small-size notes in the quantities of a complete full pack of 100 notes or half packs of 50. All notes in the pack are examined by graders, and a single grade is granted as a composite for the entire pack. However, the stated grade does not guarantee that any single given note within will grade at that level if it were submitted individually. Each pack is a single grading fee based on the declared value of the pack with an additional $60 fee for the unique new pack holder. More information and guidelines for submitting packs is available at www.PCGS.com/banknote.

About Professional Coin Grading Service

Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) is a third-party coin and banknote grading company that was launched in 1986. Over 35 years, PCGS has examined and certified nearly 50 million U.S. and world coins, medals, and tokens with a combined value of over $48 billion. For more information about PCGS products and services, including how to submit your coins for authentication and grading, please visit www.PCGS.com or call PCGS Customer Service at (800) 447-8848.

2022 American Women Quarters Rolls and Bags™–Wilma Mankiller On Sale June 14

Jun 7, 2022 | ,

WASHINGTON – The United States Mint (Mint) American Women Quarters 2022 Rolls and Bags–Wilma Mankiller will be available for purchase on June 14 at noon EDT. The Wilma Mankiller quarter is the third coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program, a four-year program that celebrates the accomplishments and contributions made by women who have shaped our Nation’s history.

The rolls and bags product options include:

  • Priced at $40.00, a bag of 100 uncirculated clad quarter dollars minted in Philadelphia (product code 22WBE).
  • Priced at $40.00, a bag of 100 uncirculated clad quarter dollars minted in Denver (product code 22WBF).
  • Priced at $36.00, a two-roll set containing a total of 80 uncirculated clad quarter dollars minted in Philadelphia and Denver (product code 22WRE).
  • Priced at $54.00, a three-roll set containing a total of 120 uncirculated clad quarter dollars minted in Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco (product code 22WRF).

Sign up to receive REMIND ME alerts by visiting the official product listing page.

The Wilma Mankiller quarter reverse (tails) depicts her with a resolute gaze to the future. The wind is at her back, and she is wrapped in a traditional shawl. To her left is the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation. Additional inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” “QUARTER DOLLAR,” “WILMA MANKILLER,” “PRINCIPAL CHIEF,” and the name of the Cherokee Nation written in the Cherokee syllabary.

United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program Designer Benjamin Sowards created the Wilma Mankiller quarter reverse design, which United States Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill sculpted.

Each coin in this series features a common obverse (heads) design depicting a portrait of George Washington. This design was originally composed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser as a candidate entry for the 1932 quarter, which honored the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. The inscriptions are “LIBERTY,” “IN GOD WE TRUST,” and “2022.”

Products in the American Women Quarters Program can also be purchased through the Mint’s Product Enrollment Program. Enrollments work like a magazine subscription. After you sign up, you will receive the next product released in the series and continue to receive products until you end your enrollment. Visit our enrollments page to learn more.

Inspire women everywhere. Shop the American Women Quarters Program today and start collecting this historic series honoring extraordinary women whose achievements, triumphs, and legacies reflect the strength and resilience of our Nation.

Note: To ensure that all members of the public have fair and equal access to United States Mint products, the United States Mint will not accept and will not honor orders placed prior to the official on-sale date of June 14, 2022, at noon EDT.

Please use the United States Mint catalog site at https://catalog.usmint.gov/ as your primary source of the most current information on product and service status or call 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468).

United States Mint Begins Shipping Third American Women Quarters™ Program Coins

Jun 6, 2022 | ,

WASHINGTON – The United States Mint (Mint) has begun shipping the third coin in the American Women Quarters (AWQ) Program. These circulating quarters honoring Wilma Mankiller are manufactured at the Mint facilities in Philadelphia and Denver. Coins featuring additional honorees will begin shipping later this year and through 2025.

“It is my honor to present our Nation’s first circulating coins dedicated to celebrating American women and their contributions to American history,” said Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson. “Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program. Wilma Mankiller was a leader in the Cherokee Nation and a strong voice worldwide for social justice, Native people, and women.”

Wilma Mankiller was the first woman elected chief of the Cherokee Nation. Mankiller’s administration revitalized the Cherokee Nation through extensive community development, including improvements to health care and education. Mankiller’s leadership on social and financial issues made her tribe a national role model.

Designed by United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Artist Benjamin Sowards and sculpted by United States Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill, the reverse (tails) design depicts Wilma Mankiller with a resolute gaze to the future. The wind is at her back, and she is wrapped in a traditional shawl. To her left is the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation. It was designed by United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Artist Benjamin Sowards and sculpted by United States Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill. The inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” “QUARTER DOLLAR,” “WILMA MANKILLER,” “PRINCIPAL CHIEF,” and the name of the Cherokee Nation written in the Cherokee syllabary.

The obverse (heads) depicts a portrait of George Washington originally composed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser to mark George Washington’s 200th birthday.  Though Frazer’s work was a recommended design for the 1932 quarter, then-Treasury Secretary Mellon ultimately selected the familiar John Flanagan design. Of Fraser, Deputy Director Gibson said, “I am proud that the new obverse design of George Washington is by one of the most prolific female sculptors of the early 20th century. Laura Gardin Fraser was the first woman to design a U.S. commemorative coin, and her work is lauded in both numismatic and artistic circles. Ninety years after she intended for it to do so, her obverse design has fittingly taken its place on the quarter.”

Inscriptions are “LIBERTY,” “IN GOD WE TRUST,” and “2022.” The obverse design is common to all quarters issued in the series.

Authorized by Public Law 116-330 , the American Women Quarters Program features coins with reverse (tails) designs emblematic of the accomplishments and contributions of trailblazing American women. The Mint will issue five quarters per year beginning in 2022 and continuing through 2025. The ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse group of individuals honored through this program reflects a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. Additional 2022 quarters still to be released will honor Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, who achieved international success despite racism and discrimination.

“Principal Chief Mankiller demonstrated that the power to change our communities is limited only by our vision,” said AIP Artist Benjamin Sowards. “She saw her people as the source of hope for the Cherokee Nation. She believed the strength of the community offered solutions to the challenges they were facing.

Please consult with your local banks regarding availability of AWQ Program quarters honoring Wilma Mankiller in late June and early July.

Numismatic Products
We invite you to learn more and enroll in the American Women Quarters Program today. Limited quantities will be produced, so sign up to ensure you receive a complete collection of AWQ numismatic products.

New Whitman Book Explores the 100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens

Jun 6, 2022 |

A new Whitman Publishing book, 100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens, by Dr. Harvey B. Richer, will debut in July 2022 at the annual convention of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association, in Ottawa. The 160-page hardcover coffee-table volume will be available from bookstores and hobby shops and online (including at Whitman.com). Here, Whitman publisher Dennis Tucker discusses how the book came to be, and its context within Whitman’s focus on Canadian numismatics.

Collectors in Ottawa, Ontario, will be among the first to see Dr. Harvey Richer’s new book, 100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens as it takes its place among nearly 75 years of related Whitman Publishing books and hobby supplies.

The publishing company, while headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin, began an extensive lineup of Canadian coin folders in 1950. Meanwhile, up in Toronto, James E. Charlton was self-publishing his Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Tokens & Fractional Currency. In 1959 R.S. Yeoman, father of Whitman’s popular Guide Book of United States Coins (the “Red Book”), approached Charlton to publish his book and distribute it in the United States. Yeoman tripled the page count and expanded the content, and sales reached 100,000 copies per year in the 1960s. In the same era Whitman also published the Standard Grading Guide to Canadian Decimal Coins, distributed a “Canadian Coin Hobby Starter Kit,” and offered hobbyists a checklist and record book to keep track of their collections.

In the 1970s Robert C. Willey and James A. Haxby pioneered the modern study of Canadian coins in a new Whitman book, Coins of Canada. Willey (1927—1993), of Saskatchewan, was well established as a numismatic researcher and writer. Haxby was known for his authoritative papers on die-making and his scholarship in Canada’s decimal coinage. Their book was groundbreaking. Whitman published it into the early 1980s.

In 2003 Q. David Bowers joined Whitman as the company’s numismatic director, and in 2004 I took the role of publisher. Clifford Mishler, former president of Krause Publications (and a Whitman author himself), introduced me to James Haxby in 2007. From this renewed partnership came a modern era of Whitman activity in Canadian coinage. We planned a brand-new, 464-page Guide Book of Canadian Coins and Tokens—a full-color illustrated history, price guide, and reference book that was published in 2012. Whitman also updated its Canadian coin folders, for large cents through modern dollars and Toonies.

In 2017 Boulder Publications released Harvey B. Richer’s excellent Gold Coins of Newfoundland, 1865—1888, subtitled How Newfoundland Came to Possess a Spectacular Mintage of Gold Coins. Part of what made Gold Coins of Newfoundland such a remarkable book was Dr. Richer’s talent as a writer and a teacher, as well as his approach to numismatics. He began his study with the formation of the solar system, moved into continental drift and a theory of geographical connection between Britain and Canada, and then a summary of 9,000 years of Newfoundland history! With this fascinating background Richer led up to the minting of Newfoundland’s gold coins.

“One aspect I was particularly interested in,” he later told me, “was the effect such a magnificent issue of coinage had on the Newfoundland population 150 years ago. Recall that this was a very poor society largely driven by fishing and seal hunting. What was the impact of the coinage on commerce, on how the Newfoundlanders viewed themselves?”

I met Dr. Richer in 2017 at the American Numismatic Association show in Denver, and we discussed the potential of a new volume in Whitman’s library of “100 Greatest” books. We immersed ourselves in the best way to present a subject as far-reaching as “the best of Canadian coins.” Dr. Richer’s development of the manuscript included consultation with the Canadian Numismatic Research Society. In 2021 we began its final editorial work.

Harvey Richer brought the same intellectual curiosity to 100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens that he gave to Gold Coins of Newfoundland—asking questions, laying the groundwork, and always looking for the human element. His writing is embellished with personal asides (the connections that make numismatics an art as well as a science). And he’s not afraid to push boundaries in his exploration of what defines a “coin” or “token.” Among the 100 Greatest you’ll find playing cards, wampum belts, and encased postage. While clearly not coins, are these forms of token money? Such questions always enliven the conversations around Whitman’s “100 Greatest” books—not to mention how to define “greatness,” and what constitutes the greatest of the great

Accompanying his narrative are outstanding pictures of the coins and tokens themselves. Photographs shared by Heritage Auctions make up the majority of the coin images—not surprising, given Heritage’s status as the largest collectibles auctioneer and third-largest auction house in the world. Many of the Canadian rarities find their homes through the Dallas-based firm’s sales. PCGS and Stack’s Bowers Galleries also contributed photographs, as did numerous museums, archives, and libraries. The result is a gorgeous numismatic panorama, a virtual coin cabinet that can be opened and enjoyed any time.

As a professor of astronomy, Harvey Richer has used the Hubble Space Telescope and major terrestrial telescopes to gaze into the heavens. The numismatic community is fortunate to have his attention turned to the richly interesting field of Canadian coins and tokens. And at Whitman Publishing we’re proud to add him to our roster of Yeoman, Charlton, Willey, and Haxby in the exploration of Canadian numismatics.

100 Greatest Canadian Coins and Tokens
By Harvey B. Richer; forewords by Kenneth Bressett and Emily S. Damstra.
ISBN 794849830. Hardcover, 10 x 12 inches, 160 pages, full color.
Retail $34.95 U.S.

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