Many years ago Keith's dad gave Elizabeth one of those cardboard folders with 50 spaces for the special states editions of quarters. Five quarters were released each year between 1999-2008, starting with the first state in the United States, Delaware, and ending with Hawaii, the final state to be added to the USA. Elizabeth was six when the program started and she has carefully collected quarters, mostly with Keith's help as he brought home quarters for her in his day's coins. We didn't go to banks to get them; we waited until each quarter landed in our loose change.
For the last year (since the program ended in 2008) Elizabeth has needed only two states: Alaska and Utah. Keith found an Alaska earlier this spring, and we were on the lookout for Utah. Then last Friday Keith came home and asked Elizabeth, "Which quarter were you missing?" before handing her the final missing quarter, Utah. In the above photo she is pressing the Utah quarter into its place, thus filling up the entire book.
$12.50 never looked so beautiful!
It's hackneyed but ever so true: the little things in life are so precious.
3 comments:
Congratulations to Elizabeth! That must have been so exciting to place the last coin in its empty spot! Caroline just started collecting the quarters a couple of weeks ago. She was looking at the quarters and noticed the detail on it and started asking us questions about it, and that is how she got interested in them. At first we couldn't find anymore of the books to put them in, so she drew up a map of the US and started coloring in each state as she would find it. We are also not going to go to the bank to try to get them; however, she has come up with quite a few already. I am sure that the early ones are the easiest ones to come by. Do you know if the East Coast was released first? She has quite a few of those. She also has Alaska, California, and Utah, too. I'm not sure about Hawaii. She will be so excited to hear that Elizabeth completed her collection! I had no idea that they had been out that long.
Does she have the Puerto Rico quarter? I saw one the other day and almost stole it from the tip jar I saw it in. For I, too, collect the quarters. I don't think there's space on my map though for the PR quarter. HA! I just looked online and you can BUY the Puerto Rico quarter for 89 cents, plus whatever shipping is. Loco!
Here is the website where I found the info about the quarters program, Carmen:
http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=50_state_quarters_program
I'll e-mail it to you as well so you'll have it.
Emily, I didn't know about the PR quarter; I'll met Elizabeth know. :)
Thanks for commenting! I love comments! :)
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