Two bits.

One fourth of a dollar.

Not even enough for a cup of cheap coffee anymore.

But for the past 10 years,  some quarters — those with their new state-designed “tails” (the “heads” still feature George Washington)  —  have become collector’s items.

Their uber collectible status has made them the most successful coin program in U.S. history.

An estimated 147 million Americans have paid more attention to their change during the past decade in hopes of finding the latest quarters.

Numismatists (a fancy word for coin collectors), school children and banks have waited with anticipation to weigh in on each shiny state coin that comes out of the mint. 

The program officially kicked off on Dec. 1, 1997, when President Bill Clinton signed the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program Act and the collecting anticipation began.

Five coins were released to the public each year.  And 300 million to 750 million coins for each new state were instant collector’s items.   

Minting began in 1999 with Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut.  The sequence was based on when each state joined the union.

This year the final five were distributed  — Oklahoma,  New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii.

So, from sea to shining sea, the landmarks of our country are now available in pocket-sized, round snapshots.

Quarters were selected for this honor because they are the “workhorse” of all coins, said Michael White, spokesperson for the U.S. Mint. Quarters are the biggest coin that has wide circulation, White explained. “A very high percentage of all quarters made are in circulation.”

One of the best things about the 10-year coin extravaganza is  the excitement it created among non-coin collectors, said Jim McKee, owner of The Coinery.  With each glimpse of a state’s coin, the buyers began to learn about history and geography, he said.

One new customer brought in her coin book with each new issue and sat down to explain how and when she got the previous coins. “It was important and exciting to her,” McKee said.

For the first time in a long time  kids could actually go through their parents’ change and almost certainly come up with a few of the coins, he said.

Obviously, educators around the country were not about to miss out on these kinds of teachable moments.

The U.S. Mint Web site — www.usmint.gov — dedicated a section to teachers’ lesson plans.  Nearly six million free lesson plans were downloaded during the last 10 years.

In Lincoln, classrooms used them in a variety of ways.

Christopher True, a teacher at Lincoln Southwest High School, uses  them in his advanced placement statistics class.

“When we get to confidence intervals for a population proportion, I have the students take out the change in their pockets and we find  the proportion of quarters that are state quarters,” he said.

True brings in some extra change on these days, too.

Taking all of the change into consideration, the class constructs a confidence interval for the proportion of all quarters in circulation that are state quarters.

For the less mathematically inclined,  chances are good that you will find a state quarter in your pocket change. Maybe not the state you were looking for, but some state quarter.  

In the coin world, avid  collectors went for uncirculated specimens that come directly from a newly broken roll of coins. There are no nicks or scratches of any kind on them, McKee said.   

In fact, some Americans became so infatuated with the coins they  collected a roll of each one —$10 worth — instead of just a single quarter for each state. 

And diehard quarter fans wanted one from each mint — a “D” state quarter from Denver and a “P” state quarter from Philadelphia.

Before each state coin’s introduction, McKee’s phone started ringing. “Is it here yet?” collectors invariably asked. 

Apparently, his experience was duplicated in coin shops across the country.

Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World magazine, has followed each coin’s introduction and seen the popularity of the program grow.  “It was like watching a giant wave move from the East Coast to the West Coast,” she said.  “As the process continued, the excitement built.”

Deisher testified in favor of the state coin program during Congressional hearings in 1995.

“The public enjoyed it. The numbers show that,” she said. “The new designs didn’t confuse people, which was one of the fears.” 

People by the thousands attended quarter launches in each state — including Nebraska, which had three separate launches  —  and public coin forums hosted by the U.S. Mint were heavily attended, according to a release.

Of course, the “cha-ching” made by the state  quarters isn’t just pocket change.

More than 34 billion quarters were issued to the Federal Reserve Banks over the past decade, representing $6.1 billion in seigniorage. For those who don’t speak in coinage jargon,  seigniorage is the profit that results from the difference in the cost of printing money and the face value of that money. Apparently, it costs 9 to 10 cents to make a quarter. 

So the mint actually made money while making money.

The state quarters are a tough act to follow, but there is already another sequence set to launch this month.

Six new designs are in the works — the District of Columbia and the five United States territories: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, United States Virgin Islands and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The first, the District of Columbia, will debut in late January, White said, and successive ones will come out in two-month intervals. 

And already approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives is another long-term quarter program, this time featuring state parks. Like the state quarters, five new ones will be issued each year.

The “workhorse” coin has another big decade ahead.

Top 5, Bottom 5

All state quarters are not created equal. Yes, they are the same size and have the same amount of metal in them, but each state’s design is unique.

And collectors have favorites, according to Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World magazine.

The magazine surveyed readers and got more than 2,000 responses  reflecting very specific likes and dislikes about the 50 coins that were distributed over the last 10 years, Deisher said.

From the beginning, one of the first quarters, the Connecticut “Charter Oak” design, was universally liked, Deisher said. It was well balanced and took up most of the coin face.

Deisher’s favorite is the Alaska design, which features a grizzly bear clutching a salmon.  Apparently others agree, because that was chosen as readers’ No. 1 design.  

Here are the survey results:

Top 5 Favorite Designs1. Alaska, 2008, Grizzly bear clutching a salmon

2. Nevada, 2006, Wild stallions with mountains

3. Arizona, 2008, Grand Canyon at sunrise

4. Connecticut, 1999, The Charter Oak

5. Hawaii, 2008, King Kamehameha

And the bottom five?

State outlines are featured in three of these least-liked designs.  Deisher said that style just wasn’t very well received. 

Least Favorite Designs1. Wyoming, 2007 — Bucking Horse

2. Michigan,  2004 — Outline of state with products placed in regions

3. Texas, 2004 — State outline

4. New Hampshire, 2000 — Old Man and the Mountain, a state icon

5. Pennsylvania, 1999 — State outline

   Reach Kathryn Cates Moore at 473-7214 or kmoore@journalstar.com.