Rolls and bags of 2025 Arkansas Innovation dollars will become available at noon ET from the United States Mint. This coin is the newest release in the U.S. Mint’s American Innovation® $1 Coin Program and is the first of four designs scheduled for this year.
 |
 |
Marking the 25th issue in the series, the program honors innovations or innovators from each state, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Today’s Arkansas Innovation Dollar honors Raye Montague, an Arkansas native and the pioneering engineer who designed the U.S. Navy’s Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. She is recognized as the first person to use a computer to create a naval ship design, completing the initial draft for the class in approximately 19 hours.
Design for the Arkansas Innovation Dollar
The reverse (tails side) of the new $1 coin features a portrait of Montague. Her prominent likeness is depicted overlooking an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. A grid pattern over the sea represents the engineering and drafting techniques she digitized to achieve her groundbreaking design.
Inscriptions on coin’s the reverse include "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," "ARKANSAS," and "RAYE MONTAGUE." The design was created by U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program artist Elana Hagler and sculpted by Mint medallic artist Eric David Custer.
The obverse (heads side) of all Innovation dollars feature a common design of the Statue of Liberty, created by Artistic Infusion Program artist Justin Kunz and sculpted by Mint medallic artist Phebe Hemphill. Inscriptions read "IN GOD WE TRUST" and "$1."
Edge-incused inscriptions include "E PLURIBUS UNUM," the year "2025," and a mint mark (P or D) indicating the coin’s production facility.
Prices, Ordering and Product Limits
Arkansas Innovation dollars are offered in 25-coin rolls for $36.25 and 100-coin bags for $123.50. Each option contains circulation-quality coins struck at the U.S. Mint’s facilities in Philadelphia or Denver.
These costs reflect a slight increase from earlier issues, which were $34.50 for rolls and $117.50 for bags. The U.S. Mint announced pricing adjustments for clad products in late December.
Customers can order rolls and bags of Arkansas dollars through the Mint’s online store under its American Innovation product section.
Production limits are set at 8,400 rolls of Philadelphia-struck coins and 7,350 rolls of Denver-struck coins, along with 3,150 bags from Philadelphia and 2,950 from Denver. An initial household order limit of 10 per product applies.
American Innovation Dollars for 2025
The U.S. Mint introduced the American Innovation $1 Coin Program in 2018 with an inaugural coin commemorating George Washington’s role in signing the first U.S. Patent. Since its launch, the program has issued four new coins annually.
The four 2025 Innovation dollars will feature:
- Arkansas $1 Coin – Honoring Raye Montague and her computer-designed ship
- Florida $1 Coin – Celebrating the Space Shuttle program
- Michigan $1 Coin – Highlighting Ransom Olds’ assembly line concept
- Texas $1 Coin – Recognizing NASA’s Mission Control at Houston’s Johnson Space Center
The remaining three coins in the 2025 series will be issued later in the year, with all four dollars included in accompanying proof and reverse proof sets.
Lost complete interest in these dollars. Having known the Ike dollar the current price of these is so overpriced with either zero precious metal or numismatic value mintage wise. I started out with reverse proof sets and totally lost interest.
Six days after the fact…. US Mint to formally publish the 2025 USMC Commemorative Coin prices in the Federal Register. “Pricing: 2025 United States Marine Corps 250th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Program and the 2025 Precious Metals Grid
by the United States Mint scheduled for publication on 01/08/2025.”
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-00203.pdf
The latest Mint figures are now available.
Prayers to those being affected by the 4 wildfires raging across California. Hard to imagine the amount of destruction being inflicted on the state currently and I wonder how in the world most are going to be able to rebuild. A lot of multimillion dollar properties/businesses totally lost! I’ve never been a fan of cramming houses so close to one another (as they do in Calif.) but I never considered the advantage this gives to fires running out of control with 100mph Santa Ana winds blowing. Concerning these dollars, I’m with Domenic and I only wonder why the Mint wastes… Read more »
Craig, I second your sentiments regarding the California wildfires. I keep telling folks here in the east that we could have devastating wildfires too someday given the vast forests of dead Ash trees and the high burn potential of invasive species. All it takes is a long drought and high winds across the Appalachians together with a spark. But the Santa Ana winds is in a league comparable to a hurricane. I imagine when you refer to the golden dollar you mean the presidential ones. But just to clarify for others, the AI dollars are not made for circulation- nor… Read more »
JQC,
Keep us posted.
https://san.com/cc/wildfires-force-thousands-to-evacuate-southern-california-unbiased-updates-jan-8-2025/
Some really horrific and awful images coming out now.
E 1,
I hope they don’t find these fires were started by nefarious individuals in our country to create chaos. If someone wanted to cause damage, man have they succeeded. Just a thought.
Craig, I’m in Northern California. We had our share of it last year and the year before. It’s the smoke that is the worst. Week after week of heavy smoke in the air. Waking up with smoke in the bedroom and wheezing. Add one round of COVID and a heat wave – kinda scary. Air Quality ratings at 250+ for days and the anxiety sets in. We ended up putting three wall mounted Hepa grade air purifiers in our house to keep us alive. That’s how bad it was. PG&E was to blame. Now we have massive utility bills necessary… Read more »
The air quality in Los Angeles must be awful.
Picture: Source http://www.fire.ca.gov
JQC,
Do You Copy!
Los Angeles County is wiped out. It’s a massive human catastrophe. 293K people evacuated. The drone footage says is all. Thousands and thousands of homes devastated. This video may be disturbing to watch.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/other/stunning-drone-footage-shows-thousands-of-la-homes-in-ashes-293-000-evacuated-as-fires-rage/vi-BB1rb2Qx
I’ve hurled lots of criticism on this series over the years, but I must now admit that it’s growing on me. I think in the end the 57-coin series will make a fine collection for display in an album, and one which will have cross-generational appeal. It certainly covers a wide scope of themes and imagery- with educational significance to boot. On top of that the proofs and reverse proofs look great. It’s got me guessing as to what innovation each remaining state (and territory) will choose. Who knows, maybe Greenland will be a 58th coin before its done. LOL.
Speaking of Greenland, I’ve been collecting 2.75-inch/10-oz bronze Anders Nyborg medals. This one is from 1974 to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the settlement at Scorebysund.
I think the nice thing about it is it’s a reasonable price. I buy a roll of the dollars, put them in capsules and then put the capsules in a lighthouse encap folder (fits 48 coins) unfortunately not 57 for the complete set. oh well. but add in the annual Native American dollar, so I have a good start on a bunch of sets put together.