The twenty-third strike to appear in the US Mint’s America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coin™ Program will be the Arches National Park Silver Bullion Coin. This silver bullion coin also marks the third to appear in 2014 and will feature a reverse emblematic of Arches National Park found in the state of Utah. As of this posting, a release date was not known for the strike.
As with all coins in the series, the Arches Coin will be composed of five ounces of .999 fine silver. It will be struck to a diameter of three inches and will be sold through the US Mint’s network of authorized purchasers. Those APs obtain the coins in bulk from the Mint and resell them to coin and metal dealers as well as the general public for a small premium above the current bullion value of the coin.
That bullion value is based on the fact that each coin contains five ounces of silver. Thus, if silver is currently trading for $30 an ounce, these coins would have a bullion value of $150 – five ounces times $30 an ounce equals $150.
The obverse of each coin in the series contains the same portrait of George Washington, the first President of the United States. The portrait was originally designed by John Flanagan for the 1932 circulating quarter dollar and has been in use on the quarters in one form or another ever since. Surrounding the portrait will be the inscriptions of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and QUARTER DOLLAR.
Shown on the reverse will be the design emblematic of Arches National Park. That design will also include in the inscriptions of ARCHES, UTAH, 2014 and E PLURIBUS UNUM.
Arches National Park in Utah
Arches National Park of Utah was not officially established as a national park until 1971. Sections of the national park, however, were protected decades earlier by President Herbert Hoover who created Arches National Monument on April 12, 1929.
The purpose of both the park and the monument were to preserve some of the over 2,000 sandstone arches in the area. These arches were created over millennia by the erosive effects of nature.
