the annual quarterly report

A visit to a store to get something sweet for my B. got me a West Virginia quarter hot from the presses, so now I have all five of the 2005 issues. These take us from California, whose 1850 admission broke the free-slave state balance enshrined in the Compromise of 1820 (but though California was a free state, its early elected officials, notably its senators, were mostly Democrats of the easy-on-slavery variety known at the time as "doughfaces"), through Minnesota and Oregon, and Kansas, whose admission right at the start of the Civil War broke a violent six-year argument over whether it was to be a free or slave state (and changing the state's image from "Bloody Kansas" to "Auntie Em! There's no place like home!"), and finally West Virginia, the state with the strangest admission in all U.S. history. When Virginia seceded to join the Confederates, a large part of the hill country, where there were few slave-owners, simply refused to go. (One hill country native who did go was T.J. Jackson, soon to be known as "Stonewall".) They held a convention, elected a loyalist state legislature and members of Congress, and operated as the legitimist Virginia state government for two years. Eventually they gave permission for their part of the state to secede from Virginia and form a new state, which for a bit was going to be called Kanawha. For a few months, West Virginia was the only state in the union to have had four senators at once.

So, let's review the quarters.

California: way too crowded. You've got John Muir trying to look at Half Dome through this giant bird that looks like it's about to fly into his face. Somebody should remind these designers that their work is going to appear on a disk less than an inch in diameter. Although I'd rather scramble around the mountains than be a beach bunny, I liked a rejected design that showed stylized waves beneath a stylized sun. That would have been really striking. Our loss. (UPDATE: Found an image of the design I liked.)

Minnesota: The only one of this year's batch with the outline of the state on it. Also has the state motto on the outline. Two tiny fishermen, facing in the wrong direction to hook the giant loon that's about to butt its head against their boat. (One of those things about bas-relief engraving: no real depth to it.)

Oregon: This is pretty nice - a genuine pictorial view of Crater Lake, a truly beautiful spot. (And quite a surprise when it was discovered.) I've actually been on the island in the middle of the picture.

Kansas: A weird semi-head-on view of a buffalo. At least it's striking, and designed to be easily seen on a tiny metal disk. It's interesting that, where Florida chose to feature the motor vehicle that most famously crashed within its territory, Kansas has chosen to feature the animal most famously killed by the millions in its territory. Should Ohio or somewhere like that have used the passenger pigeon? So where we once had the buffalo nickel, now we have the buffalo quarter. B. thinks that the buffalo looks as if it's about to plant a buffalo pie.

West Virginia: a bridge over a gorge. Another nice scenic view. I had to look it up to find out where exactly in the state this bridge is. I've been to West Virginia four times, but never anywhere near here, which turns out to be on Highway 19 near Fayetteville, southeast of Charleston. There's an impressive river bridge near my home which you can drive over without ever realizing you're on a bridge at all; although it's hard to measure a bridge's impressiveness when you're on it, this one does not look like it can be ignored by those crossing it.

Next year's designs have not been announced on the Mint web site yet.