National Park of American Samoa quarter design
On August 13, 2019, the U.S. Mint announced the final design for the National Park of American Samoa quarter at the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money in Rosemont, IL.
U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program artist Richard Masters designed and Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill sculpted the National Park of American Samoa coin’s reverse. Masters’s design shows a Samoan fruit bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup. It is intended to promote awareness to the species’ threatened status due to habitat loss and hunting. Listed as a protected species, the Samoan fruit bat can have a wing span of up to three feet. It is sometimes called a flying fox, and flies during the day as well as at night.
The inscriptions on the coin’s reverse include the name and location of the site: American Samoa; the year of issue: 2020, and the motto: e pluribus unum.
The obverse features the 1932 portrait of George Washington designed by John Flanagan.
This detailed quarter pairs nicely with the 2009 Statehood quarter, which featured cultural artifacts and tropical foliage native to Samoa. At 51st in the series overall, the National Park of American Samoa quarter will be followed by a design honoring the Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, CT.
