<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18783"></HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial> <DIV>At some point while I was in Yellowstone I mentioned to somebody that the national parks are to be the subjects of the next series of U.S. quarters. Nobody else seemed to have heard about the program. It's sorta hard to imagine that YNP won't be #1, but that ain't necessarily so. Easy enough to get info from the US Mint website, but here's the intro page.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Scott Bryan</DIV> <DIV>-------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <P class=header>America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008 </P> <P>Beginning in 2010, the United States Mint will issue coins featuring national parks and other national sites with new quarter-dollars minted and issued in accordance with the "America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008" (Act). Thanks to this innovative multi-year program, approximately every 10 weeks you will see a new design emblematic of a national site depicted on the reverse of the quarter. The sites selected for this series of quarters will come from each of 56 host jurisdictions comprising the 50 States, the District of Columbia and each U.S. territory (the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). A portrait of George Washington will remain on the obverse of all of the quarters. </P> <P>The Act, signed into law as Public Law 110-456 on December 23, 2008, requires that within 270 days of enactment (about Sept. 19, 2009), the Secretary of the Treasury must select the national park or national site to be honored with a coin in each of the 56 host jurisdictions. Under the provisions of the <A href="http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/NSQuartersProgram/index.cfm?action=siteSelection">site selection process</A>, the Secretary will consult with the Secretary of the Interior and the governor or other chief executive of each host jurisdiction. After a site list has been approved, the law requires the United States Mint to design, mint and issue the new quarters in the order in which each site was first established as a national site. </P> <P>The proposed <A href="http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/NSQuartersProgram/index.cfm?action=designSelection">design selection</A> process and <A href="http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/NSQuartersProgram/index.cfm?action=siteDesignCriteria">site and design selection criteria</A> closely emulate the processes that the United States Mint successfully used to develop and select designs for the 50 State Quarters® and 2009 District of Columbia and U.S. Territories Quarters Programs. </P> <P>Please check here regularly for updates on the "America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008" coins as the site and design selection processes unfold this year. </P></DIV></FONT><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="c13140ab49f0346c76ff3b71cc28f139"><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>