The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Silver Bullion Coin will be issued by the US Mint as the last strike in 2020 of the America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coin™ Program. A design on the reverse will showcase a portion of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve found in the state of Kansas. At the time of this posting, a release date for the coin was not known.
This series debuted in 2010 and was followed with a release rate of five per year. Each of those coins featured a different reverse emblematic of a site of national interest from around the United States and its territories. By the time the series is completed in 2021, a total of fifty six of the coins will have been minted, each from five ounces of .999 fine silver with a diameter of three inches.
The program may be extended, however, well past 2021. Aside from Congress always having the option to change law and extending the program themselves, the original authorizing law also gave the Secretary of the Treasury the discretion to follow the first run-through of the program with a complete second fifty-six coin series following the same format applied to the first. To do so, the Secretary must inform Congress of that decision within the time allotted by law.
Shown on the obverse of each coin in the series is the same portrait of George Washington, the first President of the United States. This image of Washington was originally designed by artist John Flanagan. It was first seen on the 1932 circulating quarter dollar and has been in use in one form or another on the quarters ever since. Obverse inscriptions will include UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and QUARTER DOLLAR.
The reverse will contain the design emblematic of the selected site of national interest, in this case the national preserve. That design will be surrounded by the inscriptions of TALLGRASS PRAIRIE, KANSAS, 2020 and E PLURIBUS UNUM.
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve of Kansas
Congress initially created the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve of Kansas on November 12, 1996. The preserve is cooperatively managed by both the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy.
It protects a relatively small 10,894 acres of tallgrass prairies. At one time, the tallgrasses covered up to 400,000 square miles of North America.
