The 2023 quarter honors the life and work of Mexican-American suffragette, journalist and teacher Jovita Idár. In my opinion, this is one of the worst designs ever struck on a U.S. coin, not because of the depiction of her, but because the denomination, motto and legend are integrated into clothing with other words describing her amazing life, which you can read about here.
In this article I will defend my opinion about the worst design and risk offending friends in the process, because I was a past member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (2008-14) and know many of the members who voted for this design. I also am the author of Basic Coin Design, a comprehensive study of all U.S. Mint circulating coinage, identifying the placement and artistic effect of dates, denominations, legends, mottoes, symbols and other devices.
That study earned me a place on the CCAC.
Like Idár, I am a journalist and teacher. We cover her contributions in my media ethics course at Iowa State University of Science and Technology. So I will speaking in the critical voice of a reporter and professor here.
Idár would applaud that.
The reverse design is the work of metallic artist John P. McGraw. It is fine. The portrait is not the problem. The CCAC forgot a critical aspect of circulating coinage. The public has to identify it as a coin, not a medal and not an error. The last time the Mint made such a blunder was with the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which the public hated because it looked like a quarter. The Idár quarter looks like an error, and that misleads the public.
It is a shame that the Mint blundered on two suffragette coins and, as we shall learn later, yet another suffragette.
The quarter is a relatively small coin, with a diameter of 0.955 inches. You cannot jam all manner of information onto it as the Mint has done here.
Look closely. You will see all the words describing Idár’s legacy on the large photo. Nice. But now look at the design in the shape of a quarter. The words look like a laced blouse.
We lose denomination, motto, legend and other attributes of U.S. coinage. Lost in the post-modernist word salad are all the data that make a coin a coin.
Imagine if the CCAC and its sister committee, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, chose the same reverse but with identifying lettering, as in design 8A, which includes United States of America, Quarter Dollar and E Pluribus Unum?
What’s my motive here criticizing the CCAC, CFA and U.S. Mint, all which I treasure? Why am I compelled in 2024 to write about a 2023 coin?
In 2024, I joined a dozen Facebook coin groups as a way to promote my educational coin website, Proxiblog.org. Each month hundreds of members ask us if the Idár quarter is an error so glaring as to have omitted denomination, motto and legend.
The situation has become so bad that FB group moderators immediately shut down comments as soon as someone asks if this is a big blunder of a coin.
This was just posted by the group “Coin Identification” as I was writing this article:
The last comment before shutdown calls the Idár quarter the most “popular” of all time. Perhaps “fishy” is a better word.
To complicate matters, the font of the obverse loses a descender on the “G” and seemingly reads, “In Cod We Trust” instead of “In God We Trust.
Down the rabbit hole we go once again revisiting one of the worst decisions in the history of U.S. coinage.
The Washington portrait was originally designed by Laura Gardin Fraser (1889-1966). Fraser, also a suffragette, is one of the most gifted Mint sculptors of all time. She designed some of America’s most elegant coins, including the 1921 Alabama Centennial half dollar, the 1922 Grant Memorial half dollar, and the iconic 1926 Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar.
In 1931, Fraser won the competition to design a new quarter featuring George Washington. But Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon overlooked her masterpiece and instead chose a design by John Flanagan. On artistic values alone, there is no comparison between the two designs.
Here’s her original casting:
The CCAC and CFA recommended that a version of her overlooked design grace the American Women series. Excellent choice, if you went with her font.
Here’s what we got:
The font deviates from the Fraser design, which had a distinct descender on the “G.” The font that the Mint chose lacks that:
Again, the CCAC and CFA forgot about the quarter’s diameter. So the motto reads “In Cod We Trust.”
Scammers on eBay, Etsy, TikTok, YouTube and other venues claim that the quarter actually glorifies a fish rather than a deity, celebrating the 1 million pounds of Cod captured by the US Fishing Fleet.
Here’s what came up on my screen just now on eBay:
Worse, there are videos promising instant cash if you find the Idár quarter in pocket change:
Because of the error hype and clickbait on social media, and the incessant inquiries by new collectors asking if they have struck it rich, I would like to remind the CCAC and CFA to embrace basics of coin design, including diameter of your metallic canvas.
For those curious about how the CCAC endorsed design 8 rather than design 8A, read the transcript of their discussions by clicking here.
As for me, rather than respond dozens of times per day to Facebook coin group members who think the Idár quarter is an error, all I do now is post this article, saving time before moderators shut off comments.
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