Release 38 of 50 · 2006
A broad mountain panorama, evergreen foreground, and Colorful Colorado banner turn landscape into a compact—and deliberately partial—state identity.
Official subject: Rocky Mountains and evergreen trees · Colorful Colorado
Last verified:
United States MintUnited States MintState of Colorado Department of Personnel and AdministrationU.S. Commission of Fine ArtsCitizens Coinage Advisory Committee
Public Law 105-124 ordered state reverses by constitutional ratification or admission. Colorado entered the Union on August 1, 1876 as the thirty-eighth state, making this the program's thirty-eighth coin and third 2006 release. One reverse could not encompass Indigenous homelands and living nations, plains, mesas, deserts, rivers, mining, agriculture, cities, migration, labor, or contemporary life. Colorado selected a mountain landscape as an instantly legible but partial identity.
U.S. Government Publishing OfficeUnited States Mint
The Rocky Mountains cross Colorado from north to south and dominate the state's public image, but Colorado also includes eastern plains, western plateaus, canyons, basins, forests, grasslands, and cities. The quarter depicts an emblematic mountain-and-tree panorama, not a surveyed viewpoint or named summit. COLORFUL COLORADO was already a familiar state identity phrase; on the coin it frames varied scenery through one idealized alpine view.
Leonard Buckley arranged layered ridgelines across the upper field, a dark evergreen band below, and a curved COLORFUL COLORADO banner through the middle. Norman E. Nemeth translated the drawing into shallow relief, separating peaks, snow or rock planes, trees, banner folds, lettering, and initials at circulation scale.
The Mint officially identifies rugged Rocky Mountains, evergreen trees, and a banner. It does not name Longs Peak, Pikes Peak, a park, a pass, a particular valley, a tree species, season, weather event, or exact viewpoint. The broad subject is therefore more accurate than assigning the scene to one summit.
World Coin Book interpretation: repeated ridges create depth and make the mountains the dominant visual mass; the low trees provide scale and a transition from viewer to distance; the banner turns scenery into an explicit civic slogan. This compositional reading is editorial, not an official symbolic formula.
The launch account says the quarter evokes Colorado's beauty and color and echoes the mountain language of America the Beautiful. The monochrome coin cannot literally show color, so the inscription asks viewers to supply remembered skies, stone, snow, vegetation, and seasonal change.
The design emphasizes a scenic alpine ideal. It leaves out Colorado's plains and plateau country, Indigenous sovereignty and histories, Hispanic and other communities, mining and labor, water conflict, agriculture, urban life, tourism pressures, wildfire, and environmental change. Those omissions do not invalidate the symbol, but they define its limits.
United States MintUnited States MintU.S. Commission of Fine Arts
The federal framework asked each governor to develop three to five concepts through a state process. The Mint screened legality and coinability, produced candidate artwork, consulted CFA and CCAC, returned approved choices for state recommendation, and the Treasury Secretary retained final approval.
Governor Bill Owens created the Colorado Commemorative Quarter Advisory Commission by Executive Order B 001 04. Up to twelve voting members were appointed, First Lady Frances Owens chaired it, seven formed a quorum, and majority votes adopted final recommendations. Public narratives were due May 10, 2004 and had to explain why a concept represented Colorado.
The governor's contemporary account says the commission traveled the state, spoke with hundreds of citizens including many schoolchildren, and received suggestions from about 1,500 Coloradans. It could edit, combine, or create narratives and forwarded five to the Mint. This was broad public consultation, not a documented statewide winner-take-all ballot.
Mint artists turned the narratives into five candidates: Colorful Colorado mountains; Mesa Verde Cliff Palace; a 10th Mountain Division alpine soldier; mountains, a large C, columbine, and THE CENTENNIAL STATE; and Pikes Peak with PIKES PEAK OR BUST, mining tools, and snowflakes. CFA favored simplifying candidates 1 or 5 and strengthening the mountain profile.
CCAC preferred the mountain-and-columbine candidate and ranked the issued mountain design second. Governor Owens chose the Colorful Colorado design from federally approved options and submitted it for Treasury approval. The Mint credits Leonard Buckley as reverse designer and Norman E. Nemeth as reverse sculptor; complete commission minutes, scores, governor instrument, Treasury instrument, and revision log were not located.
U.S. Department of the TreasuryState of ColoradoState of Colorado Department of Personnel and AdministrationU.S. Commission of Fine ArtsCitizens Coinage Advisory Committee
Procedures varied by state and changed during the program; each researched state page must document its actual path.
Five documented candidates all included mountains but represented different identities: the issued Colorful Colorado panorama; Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace and ancestral Pueblo architecture; a 10th Mountain Division skier and military history; a large C with columbine and Centennial State identity; and Pikes Peak with mining tools, snowflakes, and PIKES PEAK OR BUST. CFA and CCAC preferences differed. Complete candidate-art rights, artist assignments, state feedback, commission scoring, and concept-to-relief mapping remain incomplete, so no reconstructed gallery is published.
State of Colorado Department of Personnel and AdministrationU.S. Commission of Fine ArtsCitizens Coinage Advisory Committee
Official explanation: The Mint identifies a sweeping view of rugged Rocky Mountains.
Historical context: The range is a central Colorado landform and public identity, but the issued scene is not officially tied to one summit.
World Coin Book interpretation: World Coin Book interpretation: layered ridges create depth and visual dominance while avoiding one named-place portrait.
United States MintUnited States MintU.S. Commission of Fine Arts
Official explanation: The Mint identifies evergreen trees below the mountains.
Historical context: They signal Colorado's forested mountain zones; no reviewed official source names a species, grove, or location.
World Coin Book interpretation: World Coin Book interpretation: the dark foreground band gives scale and leads the eye toward the distant ridges.
Official explanation: The Mint identifies the banner and describes the design as evoking Colorado's beauty and color.
Historical context: The phrase supplies state identity that monochrome relief cannot literally display.
World Coin Book interpretation: World Coin Book interpretation: the banner crosses the landscape like a label, converting scenery into a civic emblem.
United States MintUnited States MintU.S. Commission of Fine Arts
Official explanation: The reverse carries COLORADO, 1876, 2006, E PLURIBUS UNUM, COLORFUL COLORADO, LB, and NEN.
Historical context: 1876 records statehood; LB and NEN identify Leonard Buckley and Norman E. Nemeth.
World Coin Book interpretation: World Coin Book interpretation: curved perimeter text and central banner frame the landscape while the small initials preserve authorship.
The broad official mountain subject; no exact summit is identified.
The forested foreground; no species or grove is identified.
The central inscription and state-identity phrase.
The twelve-member state body chaired by Frances Owens.
The credited reverse designer and sculptor.
Statehood
Program authorization
State commission
Public deadline
Five narratives
CCAC review
CFA review
Governor selection
Denver launch
John Flanagan's Washington portrait, adapted and sculpted for the program by William Cousins, appears on the shared obverse. Public suggestions and Colorado's commission supplied narrative themes, while Mint artists developed candidate artwork. The Mint credits Artistic Infusion Program artist Leonard Buckley with the issued reverse design and Sculptor-Engraver Norman E. Nemeth with translating it into coin relief. The reviewed record does not assign the exact composition to a public submitter or preserve the complete drawing, model, lettering, hub, and die revision history.
| Issue | Finish | Catalog mintage |
|---|---|---|
| 2006-P | Circulation | 274,800,000 |
| 2006-D | Circulation | 294,200,000 |
| 2006-S | Clad proof | 2,882,428 |
| 2006-S | Silver proof | 1,585,008 |
P and D are circulation issues. Both S issues were sold in proof products; the silver proof is a distinct 90% silver composition. Mintages are established catalog figures retained with an explicit source-audit limit.
Identify the reverse by layered Rocky Mountains, evergreen trees, and the COLORFUL COLORADO banner—not by an asserted Longs Peak portrait. P, D, or S is on the obverse near Washington's hair ribbon. P and D are circulation strikes; S coins are proofs. The clad proof has a copper-colored edge core and weighs 5.67 g; the 90% silver proof lacks that stripe and weighs about 6.25 g.
Inspect the highest ridge crests and snow or rock planes, evergreen tips, banner folds and letters, COLORADO and date lettering, and LB and NEN. First wear dulls exposed ridge crests, banner high points, and tree tops. Luster remaining in shallow valleys or letters can indicate weak strike or grease rather than wear.
Open sky and broad mountain planes reveal contact marks, scrapes, cleaning, and wheel marks; dense trees and lettering can conceal hits. Proofs require checks for hairlines, haze, milk spots, fingerprints, frost breaks, and impaired mirrors. Judge alleged doubled peaks, extra trees, missing letters, strike weakness, wear, and damage separately.
Ordinary worn P and D examples generally occupy the face-value design-set tier. Better circulation coins attract interest through full luster, clean sky and mountain planes, distinct ridge layers, separated tree tips, a complete banner, and legible LB and NEN. Clad proofs form a collector-product tier; silver proofs add 90% silver as a separate composition tier. Unsupported mountain or tree error labels alone do not create a premium. World Coin Book gives no live price promise: compare dated completed transactions for the exact mint, finish, grade, surfaces, and authenticated error status.
One Colorado reverse, any circulation mint.
Both circulation facilities.
P, D, clad proof, and silver proof.
Official law and U.S. Mint records establish program facts and image identity. World Coin Book separates official explanation, historical analysis, and editorial interpretation.
Official descriptions, historical context, and World Coin Book interpretation are labeled separately. No live prices are asserted. Last verified: