The Mount Rushmore National Memorial Silver Bullion Coin will be the last of five 2013 releases of the US Mint’s America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins™ Program. Shown on the reverse of the silver bullion coin will be a design emblematic of Mount Rushmore National Memorial found in the state of South Dakota. As of this posting, a specific release date for the bullion coin was not known.
Coins in this silver bullion series are each struck from five ounces of .999 fine silver to a diameter of three inches. A total of fifty-six coins will be struck in the series with the release order for those strikes dictated by the order in which the honored site on their reverses came under the direct control of the federal government.
Five coins are scheduled to be issued annually in the program from the debut year of 2010 until the last strike is issued in 2021. If this release schedule sounds familiar, it may, it is the same one used by the Mint for the associated America the Beautiful Quarters® Program, which will feature basically the same designs as the bullion coins.
Shown on the obverse of each America the Beautiful bullion coin as well as the associated quarter dollars will be a portrait of George Washington, as designed by John Flanagan. That image of Washington has been in use on the quarters in one form or another since 1932. The portrait will be surrounded by the inscriptions of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and QUARTER DOLLAR.
The reverse of the strikes will contain the design emblematic of the selected site, in this case Mount Rushmore. Surrounding the reverse design will be the inscriptions of MOUNT RUSHMORE, SOUTH DAKOTA, 2013 and E PLURIBUS UNUM.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota
Congress initially authorized Mount Rushmore National Memorial of South Dakota on March 3, 1925, however, construction did not actually begin on the sculpture until 1927. Work continued until October 1941, mostly under the watchful eye of artist Gutzon Borglum.
The national memorial contains 60-foot likenesses of the faces of four of the former Presidents of the United States. From left to right, the sculpture includes images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
