2017 American Liberty Gold Coin (U.S. Mint)

The U.S. Mint has revealed the new 2017 American Liberty Golden Coin, and this edition features an African American woman depicted as Lady Liberty for the first time. There will also be future editions that represent other races, including Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Indian Americans.

Rhett Jeppson, Principal Deputy Director of the United States Mint, explained in a post on the Mint’s website:

We have chosen “Remembering our Past, Embracing the Future” as the Mint’s theme for our 225th Anniversary year. This beautiful coin truly embodies that theme. The coin demonstrates our roots in the past through such traditional elements as the inscriptions United States of America, Liberty, E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust. We boldly look to the future by casting Liberty in a new light, as an African-American woman wearing a crown of stars, looking forward to ever brighter chapters in our Nation’s history book. The 2017 American Liberty Gold Coin is the first in a series of 24-karat gold coins the United States Mint will issue biennially. These coins will feature designs that depict an allegorical Liberty in a variety of contemporary forms including designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Indian-Americans among others to reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States.​

2017 American Liberty Gold Coin (U.S. Mint)

The AP notes that the coin “shows the woman’s head in profile with a crown of stars. It features the year of the mint’s founding, 1792, as well as 2017. The mint says the other side of the coin will depict an eagle in flight.”

Artist Justin Kunz, an assistant professor of illustration at Brigham Young University who has also designed for ‘World of Warcraft’, submitted the design for the coin. Jeppson said that Kunz’s work moved himself and others who eventually selected the submission, “If we see ourself in that and it speaks to us, that’s really powerful and it makes us feel inclusive.”

The commemorative $100 gold coin will be one of only a handful of U.S. coins to have depicted a woman. The Treasury also detailed plans last year to add suffragists to the back of the $10 bill and replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman to the $20.

The coin will go on sale in April; here’s how much past coins cost. And this is video of how the coin was made (at West Point!):