The new coins commemorating America’s 250th anniversary are missing key moments from U.S. history. But will they be valuable someday?

The Mayflower Compact Quarter marks the first of the Mint’s semiquincentennial (SemiQ) coins, honoring the nation’s 250th anniversary, to be released this year (1).

In total, the Mint will release five new quarters, a new dime and a new nickel, plus a collectable penny and half dollar, to celebrate America’s big 2-5-0, with each coin marking historic moments in U.S. history, ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Declaration of Independence, the drafting of the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. They feature former presidents including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln.

“The designs on these historic coins depict the story of America’s journey toward a ‘more perfect union,’” the Mint’s Acting Director Kristie McNally said in a statement (2).

But critics are adding their own two cents, suggesting the new coins only tell part of the American story. It turns out that the original designs of the coins — which began under the Biden administration — also honored the abolition of slavery, the advent of women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights movement, but were replaced during the current Trump administration. And despite the nickels and dimes involved, many feel this was no small change (3).

“The American story didn’t stop at the pilgrims and founding fathers,” Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto said in a statement, “and ignoring anything that has happened in this country in the last 162 years is just another attempt by President Trump to rewrite our history.”

Coinage controversy

Multiple reports confirm the abandoned coins would have depicted abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a scene honoring women and their fight for the right to vote, and Ruby Bridges — the first Black child to attend a formerly whites-only school in 1960. The designs were created by the Mint in conjunction with an advisory committee made up of citizens (4).

Those designs were reportedly replaced, however, by those featuring the pilgrims, the Gettysburg Address and the Revolutionary War at the direction of Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. One advisory committee member, Donald Scarinci, in an interview with NPR, said that he and his colleagues only saw the replacement designs when the Mint revealed the new coins publicly in December (3).

Ironically, CNN pointed out that Trump himself signed the legislation to develop the coins at the end of his first term — a law that specifically calls for “quarter dollars emblematic of prominent American women and commemorating the 19th Amendment,” which guaranteed women the right to vote. The outlet further reported the Mint’s claim that “The Mayflower Compact quarter, which features a woman on the front, fulfills this requirement” (5).

And while it’s not the first time the Trump administration has ordered American institutions to “purge materials focused on diversity,” as one CNN story put it, there is further concern over a proposed SemiQ $1 coin featuring Trump’s own likeness (6).

That coin features a head and shoulders bust of Trump on one side, with various images of an eagle suggested for the back, along with multiple possible inscriptions including “Liberty,” “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of many, one,” the motto of the United States) (7).

Though the Trump administration clearly sees no issue with this, others suggest that the justification for putting Trump on official government money — even if it is only a commemorative coin — holds no currency.

That’s due to the fact that putting Trump’s likeness on any U.S. bills or coinage would violate an 1866 law that prohibits putting living people on American money, “to avoid the appearance of a monarchy,” as well as the 2021 legislation Trump signed, which specifies “No head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design on the reverse of any coin” (8).

Scarinci pointed to George Washington himself, who, he noted, “Expressly said, I, George Washington, will not have my portrait on United States coins. We are done with kings. And for 250 years, around the world, the only nations that placed images of their rulers on coins are monarchs and dictatorships” (3).

Collectible haul, or simply spare change?

Coinage controversies aside, there’s also the question of how valuable these SemiQ releases could prove down the line.

The reality, it seems, is that, for hopeful collectors, the 250th anniversary coins are unlikely to increase much in value. Coin buyer Christopher Maisano, for example, pointed to quarters minted for the country’s bicentennial in 1976, and the reasons they’re worth little more than face value 50 years later.

“There is no rarity because of how many were made and because so many were saved and not used. They're all in really good condition. So there's really no collectible value," told the Philly Voice (9).

The same issue of mass production and people saving the coins is likely to prevent the SemiQ releases from attaining much added value. Though it should be noted that the Liberty Half Dollar, 1776-2026 penny and a handful of other new coins will be specifically released as collectibles (1).

That said, you never know what SemiQ coins could prove valuable to currency collectors — known as numismatists — later in the future, especially if maintained through generations.