2015 Bombay Hook Quarter Release

At noon Eastern Time today, Sept. 30, the United States Mint begins accepting orders for rolls and bags of America the Beautiful Quarters commemorating Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. This quarter is the fourth of five for 2015 and the 29th overall in the series.

Although Bombay Hook quarters launched into circulation on Sept. 14 and were ceremoniously introduced to the public on Sept. 18, many will buy them straight from the U.S. Mint. There’s a lot of chance and time involved in finding them elsewhere. Local banks cannot order quarters by design or from a specific minting facility, so there’s no telling how long it takes for new ones to appear in change.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge Quarter Design

Before the image for the Bombay Hook quarter was selected, eight candidate designs went under review. Seven of them, including the winning design, prominently depicted a great blue heron.

Designed by AIP Artist Joel Iskowitz and sculpted by U.S. Mint Sculptor-Engraver Phebe Hemphill, the reverse or tails side of the new coin shows a great blue heron with a great egret slightly behind it. Both birds are standing within the refuge’s tidal salt marsh. Inscriptions around the design include BOMBAY HOOK, DELAWARE, 2015, and E PLURIBUS UNUM.

America the Beautiful Quarters share obverse (heads side) designs of John Flanagan’s portrait of George Washington. Surrounding inscriptions read, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and QUARTER DOLLAR.

Obverses also bear a mint mark of ‘P’, ‘D’ or ‘S’ to notate their production in either Philadelphia, Denver or San Francisco.

Quarter Product Options

America the Beautiful Quarters honoring Delaware’s Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge are available in a variety of products to include 40-coin rolls and 100-coin bags with options of where they originated.

There are single rolls from the San Francisco Mint, a two-roll set from the Denver and Philadelphia Mints, and a set of three rolls with one from each facility. 100-coin bags are also available individually from the three locations. This chart will help make sense of it all:

The quarters minted in Denver and Philadelphia will eventually make their way into pocket change, but that is not the case for the quarters made in San Francisco. These are only produced for coin collectors and the U.S. Mint is the single originating source to get them.

Ordering

New quarters are available from the U.S. Mint’s website at www.usmint.gov. Here’s a link to the Mint’s quarter products. Use 1-800- USA-MINT (872-6468) for phone orders.

More About America the Beautiful Quarters

The United States Mint introduced the first coin from its America the Beautiful Quarters® Program in 2010, and has issued five quarters every year since that time.

Quarters that were released earlier this year honor Homestead National Monument of America in Nebraska, Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana and Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Look here for quarter news about past releases. Also, check our sister site that’s dedicated to national park quarters.

One more quarter will be released in 2015. It will commemorate Saratoga National Historic Park in the state of New York.

The series is scheduled to wrap up in 2021 after a quarter has been released to commemorate a national site in all 50 states, including D.C. and the five territories of the United States.