Last year marked the official beginning of the multi-year American Innovation $1 Coin program. Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Georgia were the first four designs released with Proof, Reverse Proof, and Uncirculated Denver and Philadelphia minted versions. 2018 saw the release of the introductory coin for collectors.
Even though 2020’s designs (Maryland, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Connecticut) have yet to be released and are scheduled for late in the year, submitted reverse designs for the 2021 releases have been reviewed and three of the four have been recommended by the CCAC, or the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
On March 11th, designs for New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York were given the go-ahead by the panel at the CCAC while North Carolina was still up in the air. Members elected to ask the United States Mint to produce new and different designs for the Tar Heel state.
New Hampshire
The reverse design for New Hampshire recommended is to feature or pay homage to the inventor of the home video gaming system, Ralph Baer. The design given the nod features ‘Handball’, the brown box game, on the right side of the coin while the left side reads “NEW HAMPSHIRE” and “PLAYER 1” inscribed on an incused background. “IN HOME VIDEO GAME SYSTEM” is seen on the outside on the coin that honors Baer’s Odyssey game. The design and coin itself are to look and be symbolic of an arcade token.
Virginia
A total of ten designs were proposed and further observed for the state of Virginia reverse design. Of the designs introduced, half featured a 1951 student strike seeking equality in education for students of color led by Barbara Rose Johns. The other half featured the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel which is a transportation route that opened in 1964. The tunnel reaches over 17 miles of open water. The CCAC recommended a design featuring the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel, stating that the design given the go-ahead illustrates “ingenuity involved in constructing it.”
New York
Nearly 20 designs were proposed for the reverse design of the New York Innovation $1 coin. Five designs reference the Erie Canal, six featured the invention of baseball in correlation to Abner Doubleday, and eight depicted the lunar module that was built within the Empire state. The CCAC focused solely on the five designs that featured the Erie Canal, ultimately suggesting a design depicting a packet boat being pulled from a city in the East towards to West be considered.
North Carolina
Of the five designs given to the CCAC panel for North Carolina’s design, none of them succeeded in sparking an interest overall. All of them intended to symbolize and honor higher education. The CCAC asked Mint officials to reconsider and seek new designs for them to review.
No matter the final verdict on the designs, they will all feature the common obverse featuring the Statue of Liberty unveiled in 2018 with the introductory coins.