American Samoa Quarter Design Submissions

The American Samoa people submitted 55 design ideas for their new U.S. commemorative quarter, according to Lt. Gov. Ipulasi Sunia of the American Samoa government.

With the conclusion of the successful 50 State Quarters® Program in 2008, the quarter design "baton" has changed hands from the states and moved to the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories for their six new quarters in 2009.

The quarter design narratives already given to the United States Mint by Guam and the District of Columbia were publicly more specific than American Samoa’s, but the end result will be the same. The narratives are used as templates of sorts for the creation of artistic quarter renderings by the U.S. Mint, which are then used to narrow down and select the final quarter design for minting.

Design concept submissions

Lieutenant Governor Ipulasi said the quarter design submissions had a "common thread" revolving around the:

• Tanoa (ava bowl),
• Fue (fly whisk), to’oto’o (oratory staff),
• Fale Samoa ,
• and the niu/popo (coconut)

He also said many submissions included the map of the Samoan archipelago, American Samoa seal, taupou, tulafale (high talking chief), breadfruit and pe’a (bat/flying fox). Unique designs also included depictions of the Southern Cross and Charlie the Tuna of StarKist Samoa fame.

For the submitters, Lieutenant Governor Ipulasi commented:

“I am deeply happy and honored to have received the 55 submissions from our people in such a short amount of time. I wish to thank and congratulate all the students, teachers, government employees and private individuals who made wonderful submissions. Thank you for using the opportunity to participate in the process. Now, we will collaborate with the U.S. Mint for the next 4 to 5 months to come up with the final designs to choose from and look forward to our commemorative 25 cent coin in 2009.”

During March and April, the U.S. Mint and the Office of the Governor will collaborate on the designs to ensure historical accuracy and proper representation of the designs. The designs will be refined, as necessary, before presenting them to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) and the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) in Washington DC.

U.S. quarters set for release in 2009

The D.C. and U.S. Territories commemorative quarters are to be issued in 2009 at equal intervals and in the following order:

• The District of Columbia
• The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
• Guam
• American Samoa
• The United States Virgin Islands
• The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

The yearly series of new commemorative quarters, which U.S. citizens have enjoyed since 1999, is set to conclude with these final six quarters.