How to Zhuzh Up Your Coin Collection
Are you in suspense, waiting for the U.S. Mint to start releasing the 2025 U.S. Woman Quarters? I am! While we wait together for the first quarter to drop, let’s take a look at coins that will add interest to a collection celebrating women’s history-making achievements. Who knows? It could inspire you to start a quarter-adjacent compilation!
Reach for the Stars
We’ve had a fascination with the heavens since biblical times. For astronomer Vera Florence Cooper Rubin, who will be honored with a 2025 U.S. Womens quarter design, it was a curiosity focused initially on 109 galaxies and her discovery of their stars’ variable rotation rates. That led to the finding of dark matter, a still-mysterious substance that doesn’t absorb, reflect or emit light, yet affects the gravitational pull of those galaxies.
But long before Vera, there was astronomer Annie Jump Cannon. Annie developed a temperature-based classification system for stars. The mint honored her on this 2019 Innovation Dollar. Then, reaching for those stars in modern history was physicist and America’s first woman astronaut, Dr. Sally Ride. Her achievement was celebrated in 2022, the first year of the U.S. Women quarter designs.
Most inspiring of all was New Hampshire educator, Christa McAuliffe, chosen to be the first teacher to go into space. The reverse of her commemorative coin depicts Christa pointing students to the stars with the inscription: i touch the future. i teach
Shimmering Silver
Silver coins come with historical, artistic and cultural significance – even newly minted ones! Here’s an example of the 2024 U.S. Women quarter designs in silver Proof from the San Francisco Mint. You can be sure the silver set for the 2025 quarter designs will feature Stacey Park Milbern, the effective activist for people with disabilities.
Born with congenital muscular dystrophy, Stacey was introduced to disability rights history as a teenager. From high school, her sense of community and passion for activism grew. When she was just eight, though, the U.S. Mint released this stunning commemorative silver dollar to honor the 1995 Paralympics held in Atlanta, GA. Also honored in 1995 with a silver dollar for her activism on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities was Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
In this modern age of commemorative coins, silver is also minted in tribute to athletes. Who doesn’t have at least one for a favorite pastime or a sports hero? Later this year, tennis great Althea Gibson will be honored with a U.S. Women quarter design, not only in silver, but also as P&D and clad-struck quarters. Althea was the first African American player to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. She later became the first black golfer in the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
Althea’s trailblazing accomplishments put her in the same league as America’s first African American female pilot who was a professional stunt aviator, Bessie Coleman. Bessie was honored with a U.S. women silver quarter bearing her likeness.
Equal Rights
Crusading for equal rights has taken many forms over the course of U.S. history. Two new 2025 U.S. Women quarter designs will honor strong southern women with distinctly different approaches. One pays tribute to investigative journalist and editor of two Memphis-based newspapers and a NAACP co-founder, Ida B. Wells. The other is Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, GA.
Like Mexican American journalist-editor Jovita Idar, who was honored with a U.S. Womens quarter design, Ida used her writing skills to crusade for equal justice. After her own printing presses were destroyed, The New York Age published her expose that used statistics to detail mob violence against African Americans.
Honored on U.S. coins, both Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt supported the formation of the NAACP. Helen also became a founding member of the ACLU while Eleanor chaired the UN’s first Commission on Human Rights. Another U.S. Womens quarter design honored Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a co-founder of the National Organization for Women, which champions the rights of women and girls in all aspects of social, political and economic life.
Born into wealth and social standing in the second half of the 19th century much like Eleanor Roosevelt, Juliette Gordon Low envision an organization in which girls of all backgrounds could develop leadership and advocacy skills. In 2013, the mint honored the Girls Scout centennial with this silver Proof struck at the West Point Mint.
PS and btw…
If you’re new to collecting U.S. Women quarter designs, you can reverse shop, starting with Littleton Coin’s affordable P&D coin folder for this series. This year, 2025 marks its fifth and final year. In all, there are 20 quarter designs for this special focus on women’s history-changing achievements.
Or, you could build a collection based on the coinage of the U.S. Mint’s uber-talented artists. See how you can springboard from their women quarter designs by clicking this link to an earlier blog article.
Please take a tour of our education page: Learning About Collecting. It’s a great how-to resource that’s also linked in this Heads & Tails on three basic steps to collecting.
And remember: Collect what you like!
