US Coins

CFA recommends 2019 American Innovation dollars

By Paul Gilkes

Published: Apr 27, 2019, 6 AM

Fort the 2019 New Jersey Innovation dollar the CFA focused on designs recognizing inventor Thomas Alva Edison and his team.

Images courtesy of the U.S. Mint.

One proposed reverse design favored by the CFA for the 2019 New Jersey Innovation dollar depicts the Edison Kinetoscope while a second features an Edison light bulb.

Images courtesy of the U.S. Mint.

The same proposed 2019 design for the reverse of the Delaware Innovation dollar was favored by both the CCAC and CFA.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Mint.

The design selected by the the CFA for the 2019 Pennsylvania Innovation dollar is the design favored by the CCAC.

Images courtesy of the U.S. Mint.

During its April 18 monthly meeting, the Commission of Fine Arts recommended reverse designs for 2019 American Innovation dollars. Two of the CFA recommendations are also recommended by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, picked during the April 16 and 17 CCAC meeting.

The CFA recommendations are for reverse designs of four coins scheduled this year to commemorate innovations or innovators from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Georgia.

The CFA recommends the same designs as the CCAC for the Delaware and Pennsylvania coins. (Those picks are illustrated with the coverage of the CCAC sessions.)

Inside Coin World: Unusual origin for brockaged Lincoln cent: Columns in the May 20 issue serve up for reader enjoyment an unusual brockaged Lincoln cent, diagnostics of a fake 1897-S Morgan dollar and a review of the market for the 1922 Grant Memorial coins.

The Delaware reverse design that both coin and medal advisory panels recommend recognizes the achievements of internationally renowned astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, who invented a system still in use today for classifying the stars. The Pennsylvania design both groups recommend reflects the development of the vaccine for polio.

For New Jersey, the CFA finds two reverse designs acceptable. The designs reflect the efforts of Thomas Edison and his team in the development of the light bulb and equipment for the motion picture industry.

One New Jersey design recommended, according to the U.S. Mint’s narrative, “depicts a stylized Edison Kinetoscope movie projector with ‘Motion Pictures’ displayed in an expanding beam of light emanating from the projector.” The second design, equally favored, “features an Edison bulb against an ornate background.”

For Georgia, the CFA made no recommendation. CFA members were concerned that an agricultural theme, which is associated with the plantation system supported by slave labor, would be inappropriate for the coin.

Whatever reverse redesigns are approved by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be paired with a common legislated obverse depicting a rendition of the Statue of Liberty.

The American Innovation $1 Coin Program provides for the release of 56 coins, four per year. There is to be one coin issued for each of the 50 states in the order in which they ratified the U.S. Constitution or joined the Union as a state. After all the states have been honored, dollar coins will be issued for the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories — Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.

While the dollar coins are being struck at multiple Mint production facilities for various numismatic products, none of the coins produced with a circulation-quality finish will be struck for release into general circulation. The last $1 coins struck and released into circulation were the 2011 James A. Garfield Presidential dollars.

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