US Coins

CCAC fails to select Mayflower designs for 2020

By Paul Gilkes

Published: Apr 25, 2019, 10 AM

The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee could not agree on designs to recommended for 2020 Mayflower 24-karat gold $10 coin and silver medal.

Background image by John O'Neill; The Landing of the Pilgrims image in public domain.

1877 painting, “The Landing of the Pilgrims,” by American artist Henry A. Bacon, captures the atmosphere of the 1620 event.

Images in public domain.

Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. At the left of the rock can be seen where it was split in two in 1774, with the top part relocated to the town’s meetinghouse. The two parts were later rejoined in 1880, at which time the date 1620 was inscribed into the rock.

Image by John O’Neill.

Members of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee were unable to reach consensus, during their two-day meeting April 16 and 17, on proposed designs for a gold $10 coin and silver medal recognizing the 1620 disembarking of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in present day Massachusetts.

The CCAC members passed a motion allowing the Mint to make the design recommendations based on compatibility with any designs under development by the British Royal Mint.

CCAC Chairman Tom Uram said it is believed the U.S. Mint may package or market the Mayflower coin and medal as a joint release with the British Royal Mint.

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The U.S. Mint has been pursuing a number of joint numismatic ventures with world mints.

Ten members of the 11-member panel participated in the April 16 and 17 consideration of the proposed Mayflower designs rendered by members of the U.S. Mint’s engraving staff and ancillary Artistic Infusion Program. CCAC member Dennis Tucker was unable to attend the meetings.

The CCAC reviewed nine proposed obverse and six proposed reverse designs for the gold $10 coin and five obverse and six reverse designs for the Mayflower silver medal.

The gold coin and silver medal, although commemorative in nature, are not part of a congressionally mandated program. The Mayflower coin and medal are being pursued by the Mint under congressional authority granted to the Treasury secretary.

None of the proposed designs garnered the minimum number of votes the panel requires to make a recommendation.

Each member participating may assign a vote of 0 to a maximum of 3 per design. With 10 CCAC member participating, the maximum votes that any one design could receive was 30.

A simple majority of 16 votes was needed to recommend any design.

Uram believes the difficulty in reaching consensus, especially for the gold coin, was the size of the palette on which the design would have to be rendered.

With each design containing multiple devices, Uram said, a lot of detail would be crammed onto a small planchet.

The diameter of the gold $10 coin, Uram said, will likely be close to the American Eagle quarter-ounce gold coin’s 22-millimeter diameter.

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