New quarters featuring renowned poet and onetime Arkansan Maya Angelou are expected to begin circulating in late January or early February.
The federal Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 established the American Women Quarters program, which honors the accomplishments of various trailblazing women.
The U.S. Mint announced last week that the agency began shipping the quarters honoring Angelou, who will be the first Black woman to appear on a U.S. quarter.
Angelou is depicted on the "tails" side of the coin with her arms outstretched in front of a bird and a sun, images inspired by her poetry. The coin was sculpted by Craig Campbell, a Kansas artist who is also the sculptor of several pieces in the Little Rock River Market sculpture garden.
In addition to Angelou, the 2022 coin honorees are astronaut Sally Ride, Cherokee Nation principal chief Wilma Mankiller, Native American activist Nina Otero-Warren, and film star Anna May Wong.
Angelou was raised in the south Arkansas town of Stamps.
Walter Dupree, business manager at McIntire Rare Collectibles in Jacksonville, said the shop plans to purchase the coins for customers from the U.S. Mint. They won't be available for purchase until Feb. 7, so Dupree said the store won't have them available until sometime after Valentine's Day.
Coin shops can buy the coins at a premium from the U.S. Mint -- for instance, a $10 value roll of 40 quarters costs $18. Dupree said he expects to purchase about 10 rolls and several 100-coin bags, spending between $700 and $800, to sell at a markup to customers. He said the store typically charges about 75 cents for quarters.
He added that once the coins are out for normal circulation, Arkansans could see them as change in stores, but most likely from bigger retailers such as Walmart, Target or grocery stores.
Though Dupree said he expects to get inquiries from customers about the coins in the American Women Quarters program, the U.S. Mint has been "bombarding" collectors with a lot of new material over the past few years, so this latest program may slip through the cracks.
"I don't actually know how many Arkansas collectors know that Maya Angelou's an Arkansan," he added.
But Dupree said the recent releases from the U.S. Mint have renewed interest in coin collecting overall, even in a society where people are seeing more plastic than cash.
"These programs have tremendously boosted the coin collecting hobby, which back through 2009 was getting a little morbid," he said. "Each round of new material like this can bring new collectors and new interest into it."
Other quarters with Arkansas connections in recent years include the state quarter, which was issued in 2003 and features a diamond, rice and a mallard duck.
A quarter with an Arkansas connection also kicked off the America the Beautiful Quarters Program, which consisted of 56 coins featuring different national parks and other sites.
The first in the series depicted Hot Springs National Park and was released in 2010. The park was first established as a national site in 1832 and is considered by some sources to be the first national park.