Read time: 4 min.

As a coin collector who spent much of 2026 unemployed, I’ve had a blast hunting down this year’s United States Semiquincentennial coinage. I splurged on the Enduring Liberty half-dollar and the controversial dollar, which I’ll cover another time, but the real fun has been finding the rest in my change. Will they ever be worth more than face value? Probably not. Do I care? Not a whit! After what felt like an eternity, I finally got my hands on three of the “Constitution of the United States” quarters featuring James Madison and Independence Hall.

In recognition of the USA’s 250th birthday, the mint issued a slate of commemorative circulating coinage. So far there’s a new nickel, a new dime, four new quarters, a half dollar, and that contentious dollar. Their designs range from forgettable to downright spectacular! Every one that I found headed straight into a coin flip until I started receiving nickels and dimes practically everywhere I went. Today, I have two of the SemiQ nickels and seven Liberty over Tyranny dimes in my collection. That’s probably enough.

The dime, which I think is the most beautiful circulating coin the U.S. Mint has produced since the Mercury dime, debuted alongside the Mayflower Compact quarter and Enduring Liberty half-dollar on January 5, 2026. The American Revolutionary War quarter followed on March 23, with the Declaration of Independence quarter arriving May 25. I’ve had pretty good luck finding them in the wild: so far, I’ve snagged two Mayflower quarters, four Revolutionary War quarters, and three Declaration of Independence quarters, all from ordinary pocket change.

The Constitution quarters entered circulation on August 10, but it took sixty-five days for me to find one. That finally changed the other day when a trip to Panda Express yielded not one, not two, but three of them! I’d seen the Mint’s official renderings and promotional photos, so I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. There’s something about holding a coin in your hand, turning it under the light, and seeing how its details come together that a photo can’t really capture. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that’s a good thing in this case.

I was disappointed that the Mint recycled its portraits of George Washington and James Madison from the Presidential dollar series. Madison appears intensely derpy, if not downright sniveling, with his bug-eyed stare and prominent widow’s peak. Washington looks like he’s silently judging me for pulling the nacho cheese out of the cupboard. Surely, for the nation’s 250th birthday, we could have done better- or at least commissioned new obverse designs.

At least the forthcoming Gettysburg Address quarter, scheduled for release in about a week, features a different portrait of Abraham Lincoln than the ones we’re used to seeing on the penny. It’s even different than the one we’re not used to seeing on his Presidential dollar, given that they’re so uncommon in the wild. That’s something to look forward to! I’ll be keeping an eye on my change, just as I have all year.

The Semiquincentennial will almost certainly not be remembered with the same enthusiasm as the Bicentennial of 1976, but these coins have given me a small, inexpensive way to participate aside from the work I’ve done with the DAR. After a year when money was tight, it was truly satisfying to find a little piece of history in a handful of change- even if they’re only worth twenty-five cents.