America the Beautiful

The US Mint has started releasing the 2010 "America the Beautiful" five-ounce silver bullion coins.

The Mint began accepting orders from authorised purchasers on Monday, 6th December 2010. The bullion coins have a symbolic face value of a quarter dollar, a diameter of three inches and bear no mint mark. The actual value of the coin is based on the silver it contains. However, they have proved so popular with the coin-collecting community that some are reportedly selling for “double spot value”.

These large-format coins - so called when coins are five ounces or larger - are the first of their kind for the US government and required the US Mint to spend $2.2 million on a coin press made by Graebener in Germany.

The "America the Beautiful" program was launched earlier this year and is set to continue until 2021. It calls for the creation of 56 coins, one for each state, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories, to honour national parks and sites.