SEPTEMBER 28
2021•Mint Set Captures the Quarter’s Transition Year
2012•Capitol Coin & Stamp Gold-Coin Robbers Sentenced
A U.S. Mint Set Captures the Quarter’s Great Transition Year
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On September 28, 2021, the United States Mint released its annual Uncirculated Coin Set, a 14-coin collection that captured one of the most unusual transition years in the history of the Washington quarter. The set contained the final design of the America the Beautiful Quarters Program—the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site quarter—and the new General George Washington Crossing the Delaware quarter that replaced it later in 2021.
For collectors, that meant two fundamentally different Washington quarters from the same year appeared side by side in the Philadelphia and Denver folders.
One closed an 11-year national-parks series. The other served as a short-lived bridge between that program and the American Women Quarters Program beginning in 2022.
The Annual Uncirculated Coin Set
The United States Mint has sold annual sets of uncirculated coins in various forms for generations.
These sets give collectors examples of the year’s circulating denominations directly from the Mint rather than requiring them to search pocket change or bank rolls.
The 2021 edition contained two folders.
One held seven coins from the Philadelphia Mint and the other held seven corresponding coins from the Denver Mint, for 14 coins in all.
A certificate of authenticity and coin specifications accompanied the set.
Each folder contained a Lincoln cent, Jefferson nickel, Roosevelt dime, Kennedy half dollar, Native American $1 coin, and two Washington quarters.
The unusual feature was that second quarter.
Most years of the preceding America the Beautiful era featured several different national-site quarter reverses. But 2021 was structured differently.
The year began with the 56th and final America the Beautiful design. After that program ended, a separate Washington Crossing the Delaware quarter filled the remainder of the year.
The Last America the Beautiful Quarter
The first quarter in the set honored Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Alabama.
It was the final coin in the America the Beautiful Quarters Program.
The program had begun in 2010 and eventually honored 56 national parks and other national sites—one from each state, the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories.
The Tuskegee Airmen coin brought that enormous sequence to a close.
The Tuskegee Airmen reverse was designed by Chris Costello of the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program and sculpted by Mint Medallic Artist Phebe Hemphill.
It depicts a Tuskegee Airman preparing to join the fight during World War II.
Moton Field’s control tower appears in the background while two P-51 Mustangs fly overhead.
Across the top is the powerful inscription THEY FOUGHT TWO WARS.
The phrase refers to the fight against fascism overseas and the struggle against racial discrimination at home.
The Tuskegee Airmen were African American military pilots, mechanics, instructors, and support personnel associated with the Army Air Forces training program centered at Tuskegee, Alabama, during World War II.
They served at a time when the U.S. armed forces remained segregated.
Their wartime achievements challenged racist assumptions about Black servicemen and became part of the broader history leading toward military desegregation.
By choosing Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site for the last America the Beautiful quarter, the program ended with a site representing both military service and civil-rights history.
The Final Coin Arrives in Early 2021
The Mint began releasing the Tuskegee Airmen quarter into circulation in January 2021, earlier than originally planned because of heightened demand for circulating coinage.
Collector products featuring the design followed.
By the time the September Uncirculated Set appeared, collectors already knew the Tuskegee issue as the final chapter of the America the Beautiful series.
What made the annual set exceptional was the coin beside it.
The second 2021 quarter depicts General George Washington commanding his troops during the famous crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776.
The Continental Army crossed the icy river before the surprise attack on Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.
The victory at Trenton became one of the best-known episodes of the American Revolution.
The Mint began issuing the Washington Crossing the Delaware quarter on April 5, 2021.
Artist Benjamin Sowards of the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program designed the reverse.
Former Mint Medallic Artist Michael Gaudioso sculpted it.
Washington is shown in the boat among his troops, directing the crossing rather than posing as an isolated heroic figure.
The reverse inscriptions include UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM, CROSSING THE DELAWARE, and QUARTER DOLLAR.
The obverse of the Crossing the Delaware quarter was also significant.
It returned to the familiar John Flanagan portrait of George Washington in a form resembling the quarter as it appeared from 1932 through 1998.
That portrait had been modified for the 50 State Quarters and America the Beautiful programs.
For the 2021 transition coin, the Mint restored the older arrangement and presented Washington larger and in higher relief.
The effect made the coin look simultaneously new and historically familiar.
Two Obverse Arrangements in One Year
This created an unusual situation.
The 2021 Tuskegee Airmen quarter carried the America the Beautiful-era obverse arrangement, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and QUARTER DOLLAR on the front.
The Washington Crossing the Delaware coin returned those denomination and national inscriptions to the reverse and restored LIBERTY and the date to the obverse arrangement associated with the older Flanagan quarter.
Thus the two quarters in the 2021 Mint Set differ on both sides.
The Crossing the Delaware quarter was not the beginning of another decade-long series.
It was a transitional issue.
The America the Beautiful program had ended, but the American Women Quarters Program would not begin until 2022.
For part of 2021, Washington crossing the Delaware occupied the space between them.
That short lifespan gives the design a special place in the modern quarter chronology.
Before 1999, generations of Americans had grown accustomed to a largely stable Washington quarter.
The 50 State Quarters Program changed that.
From 1999 through 2008, five new state reverses appeared each year. Six District of Columbia and U.S. Territories designs followed in 2009.
America the Beautiful then began in 2010 and continued through early 2021.
By the time the September 2021 Mint Set appeared, changing quarter designs had become normal—but the set documented the precise moment one major program ended and another design era briefly began.
The set’s Native American $1 coin also carried a historically themed reverse.
The 2021 design honored Native Americans in U.S. military service since 1775.
It depicts two eagle feathers with five stars representing branches of the U.S. military.
A circular element unifies the composition.
The inscriptions identify the theme as NATIVE AMERICANS – DISTINGUISHED MILITARY SERVICE SINCE 1775.
That made the annual set particularly rich in military-history imagery: Tuskegee Airmen, Washington’s Revolutionary War crossing, and Native American military service.
Philadelphia and Denver
The 2021 Uncirculated Coin Set included examples from both major circulating-coin facilities.
The Philadelphia folder contained Philadelphia-struck versions of the seven included coins, while the Denver folder contained the corresponding Denver pieces.
The Lincoln cent from Philadelphia carried no mint mark, while the other applicable Philadelphia denominations carried P. Denver coins carried D.
For the two quarter designs, collectors received both P and D examples in the same product.
Annual uncirculated sets should not be confused with proof sets.
Proof coins are specially manufactured collector pieces characterized by carefully prepared surfaces and distinctive finishes.
The coins in an Uncirculated Coin Set represent the year’s regular coinage in collector-quality uncirculated form.
They are intended to preserve examples without circulation wear, but they are not proof strikes.
The Mint also sold 2021 proof and silver proof sets containing the two quarter designs.
Annual Mint Sets normally provide a neat sample of a year's standard circulating lineup. The 2021 set is different because the quarter was visibly in motion. The two designs do not merely represent different commemorative subjects; they belong to different program structures and different obverse layouts.
That makes the set especially useful as a historical object. A collector can place the two quarters beside one another and see the end of one federal coin program and the temporary solution that followed it without leaving the same official product.
In that sense, the set preserves a transition more clearly than many individual circulation finds ever could.
September 28, 2021
The Mint announced that sales of the 2021 Uncirculated Coin Set would open at noon Eastern Daylight Time on September 28.
The product code was 21RJ.
The date was also recorded on the Mint’s official 2021 product schedule.
For the CoinCrafters calendar, September 28 therefore marks a documented Mint product release rather than the first striking or circulation release of either quarter.
Annual Mint Sets often become more historically interesting with age because they preserve the complete circulating lineup of a particular year.
The 2021 set does this especially well.
Open the folders and the transition is immediately visible.
The Tuskegee Airmen quarter says goodbye to a program that had carried collectors across 56 national sites.
The Washington Crossing the Delaware quarter looks backward to the Revolution and to the classic Flanagan obverse while simultaneously filling the gap before the next major quarter program.
In 2022, the quarter changed again.
The American Women Quarters Program began with Maya Angelou and continued with designs honoring prominent American women through 2025.
The obverse changed as well, adopting Laura Gardin Fraser’s portrait of George Washington—a design originally created for the 1932 Washington quarter competition but not used for the circulating coin at that time.
That means the 2021 Crossing the Delaware design truly belonged to a narrow historical window.
Three Quarter Eras Meet Within Two Calendar Years
The transition becomes even more striking when 2021 is viewed between 2020 and 2022. A 2020 quarter belongs fully to the America the Beautiful program. Early 2021 closes that series with Tuskegee Airmen. Later 2021 introduces the stand-alone Crossing the Delaware reverse. Then 2022 begins the American Women Quarters with a different Washington obverse.
Few periods in the denomination's history contain that much visible change in such a short span. The 2021 Mint Set sits directly at the center of it.
For future collectors studying how the modern quarter evolved, the set offers a convenient physical marker between the long-running national-site era and the next congressionally authorized series.
The 2021 Uncirculated Set is notable because it contains an ending and an interlude.
Tuskegee Airmen is the definitive endpoint of America the Beautiful.
Washington Crossing the Delaware is a stand-alone transition design before the American Women series.
Collectors therefore do not need to infer the change from separate products or different years. Both stages sit next to one another in the same official Mint set.
September 28, 2021 marks the release of a United States Mint Set that preserved an unusually eventful year for the quarter dollar.
The 14-coin set contained Philadelphia and Denver examples of the year’s denominations, but its four quarters were the stars: P and D Tuskegee Airmen coins closing the America the Beautiful program and P and D Washington Crossing the Delaware coins representing the brief transition that followed.
The set therefore captured more than the routine coinage of 2021.
It preserved the moment when one of the longest modern U.S. quarter programs ended, the classic Flanagan portrait arrangement returned, and a one-year reverse carried the denomination toward its next major redesign.
Few annual Mint Sets show a transition so clearly.
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