Statehood Quarters Program to Honor Puerto Rico and Territories

Are you one of the millions of people who collect U.S. Statehood Quarters? If so, you may be happy to know that legislation to extend the Statehood Quarters Program an extra year by adding six new coins passed in Congress just before the Christmas holiday recess.

New coins added to the popular Statehood Quarters Program include U.S. non-states: the U.S. Virgin Islands; the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; American Samoa; Guam; and the District of Columbia (aka Washington, D.C.). Each will get its own Statehood Quarters Program

A Congressional staff member told this writer that in addition to the Statehood Quarters Program increase, the legislation provides for moving the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, from the edges of coins in the new Presidential Dollar coin series, to the obverse or reverse.

As originally passed in 1997, and signed by then President Bill Clinton, the Statehood Quarters Program calls for the issuance of 50 individual commemorative quarter dollar coins (each with a different reverse) to be issued between 1999 and 2008. Each of the quarters reverses carry a distinctive scenic design associated with the particular state.

Five new quarters have been issued each year of the program every 73 days, according to the order in which each state joined the Union.

Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut were the first quarters released in 1999. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii, were to be the five final states, before the new law including the aforesaid territories was passed.

The Statehood Quarters Program has become the most successful numismatic-inspired collector program ever. It is estimated that approximately half of the U.S. population is involved in collecting Statehood Quarters. More conservative estimates put the number of people pulling these coins out of circulation and saving examples at close to 100 million.