Maya Angelou Quarter: Value, Mintage and Errors
The 2022 Maya Angelou quarter is worth 25 cents in circulated condition. 495,800,000 were struck, 237,600,000 at Philadelphia and 258,200,000 at Denver. Released on 10 January 2022, it was the first coin of the program. The 2022-S version was sold only to collectors, in the Mint's three-roll sets and proof sets, and never released into circulation.
What this coin looks like
The reverse of the Maya Angelou quarter shows Angelou with her arms uplifted. Behind her are a bird in flight and a rising sun. The U.S. Mint describes these as images inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived. The reverse inscriptions are UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, MAYA ANGELOU, E PLURIBUS UNUM and QUARTER DOLLAR.
The design is by Emily Damstra, a designer in the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program, and it was sculpted by U.S. Mint Medallic Artist Craig A. Campbell. It was the first coin in the American Women Quarters Program; the Mint announced on 10 January 2022 that it had begun shipping the quarters. The heads side carries Laura Gardin Fraser's portrait of George Washington, common to every coin in the series.
The reverse inscriptions read:
- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- MAYA ANGELOU
- E PLURIBUS UNUM
- QUARTER DOLLAR
The obverse is the same on all 20 coins in the series: George Washington facing right, with LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST, the date and the mint mark. The mint mark is to the right of Washington's neck, below the date. P is Philadelphia, D is Denver, S is San Francisco and appears only on proof and collector issues.
Is my Maya Angelou quarter an error?
No error unique to this coin is documented. The persistent claim is the "$10,000 Maya Angelou quarter." 495,800,000 Angelou quarters were struck for circulation. The $10,181 figure belongs to a unique 2022-P Sally Ride quarter struck on a nickel planchet, and has been attached to nearly every coin in the series since. The 2022-S Angelou quarters were sold to collectors in three-roll sets and proof sets; they are not rare circulation finds.
What people most often bring to this coin are the three claims that attach to every coin in the series: a faint G in IN GOD WE TRUST (not an error, it is the typeface), flat shiny doubling on the lettering (machine doubling, not a doubled die), and small raised lumps from die chips. The errors page has nine tests that separate a genuine mint error from damage, and the short list of errors that are actually documented in this program.
What is it worth?
| Found in change | 25 cents |
|---|---|
| Uncirculated, from a Mint roll or bag | $1 to $2 |
| Certified mint state | A few dollars, rising to roughly $86 at the top of the population for the series |
| Clad proof (S mint) | Typically less than the cost of grading it |
| Silver proof (S mint, .999 fine) | A floor set by the silver price, plus a small premium |
Values as of October 2026. The full reasoning, including the four cases where a coin in this series is genuinely worth more, is on the value page.
How many were made
| Philadelphia (P) | 237,600,000 |
|---|---|
| Denver (D) | 258,200,000 |
| Total for circulation | 495,800,000 |
| Rank in the series | 15 of 20 by circulation mintage, lowest first |
| San Francisco (S) uncirculated | 303,520 reported (collectors only) |
See the full mintage table for all 20 designs, or the key date page for where this coin sits in the series.
Collector versions
Besides the Philadelphia and Denver coins in circulation, the Mint sold three San Francisco versions of the 2022 Maya Angelou quarter directly to collectors. None were released into circulation.
| 2022-S uncirculated | 303,520 reported. Only in the 2022 three-roll set (40 P, 40 D, 40 S), $54.00 at issue |
|---|---|
| 2022-S clad proof | 442,823 reported. In the 2022 U.S. Mint Proof Set and the 2022 American Women Quarters Proof Set ($21.00 at issue, 42,821 sold) |
| 2022-S silver proof | 356,873 reported. In the 2022 Silver Proof Set, the Limited Edition Silver Proof Set and the 2022 American Women Quarters Silver Proof Set ($73.00 at issue, 57,768 sold) |
S figures are reported, not Mint-published; the S table explains where they come from. Set sales are as reported by CoinNews on 21 October 2026. Details on the proof and silver proof sets and the Mint rolls and bags.
Who was Maya Angelou?
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on 4 April 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Bailey Johnson and Vivian Baxter. When she was three, she and her older brother Bailey were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas.
At eight, back with her mother in St. Louis, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend. After the man was killed, she stopped speaking for almost five years. She returned to Stamps, where a teacher and family friend, Mrs. Flowers, helped her to speak again. At 14 she moved to her mother's home in California, and at 16 she became the first Black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. At 17, three weeks after finishing school, she gave birth to her son, Clyde, who later took the name Guy Johnson.
She married Tosh Angelos in 1951; they divorced in 1954. In the 1950s she worked as a singer and dancer, performing in San Francisco nightclubs under the name Maya Angelou and touring Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess in 1954 and 1955, and in 1957 she recorded her first album, Miss Calypso. She moved to New York in 1959 and joined the Harlem Writers Guild. In 1960 she organized the Cabaret for Freedom to benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was named its Northern Coordinator.
From 1961 she lived in Africa, first in Cairo, where she was an associate editor at The Arab Observer, and then in Accra, Ghana, where she worked at the University of Ghana. She returned to the United States in 1965 to help Malcolm X build the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterward. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on her 40th birthday, 4 April 1968; later that year she wrote and narrated the documentary series Blacks, Blues, Black!
Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was published by Random House in 1969 and was nominated for the National Book Award. It was the first of seven autobiographies. Her poetry collection Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her screenplay for Georgia, Georgia (1972) was the first by a Black woman to be produced, and she received a Tony Award nomination in 1973 for her role in Look Away. She also appeared in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.
In 1982 she accepted a lifetime appointment as the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. On 20 January 1993 she recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. She received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1994, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and on 15 February 2011 President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Maya Angelou died on 28 May 2014 at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the age of 86.
She was selected as a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist who, in the words of Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson, "used words to inspire and uplift."
The design
| Reverse designer | Emily Damstra, U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program |
|---|---|
| Reverse sculptor | Craig A. Campbell, U.S. Mint medallic artist |
| Obverse | Laura Gardin Fraser, designed and sculpted, 1931 |
| Released | 10 January 2022 |
Specifications
| Composition, circulating | 91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel (pure copper core, copper-nickel outer layers) |
|---|---|
| Composition, silver proof | .999 fine silver |
| Weight | 5.670 g clad, 6.343 g silver proof |
| Diameter | 24.26 mm |
| Thickness | 1.75 mm |
| Edge | reeded, 119 reeds |
| Mints | Philadelphia (P) and Denver (D) for circulation; San Francisco (S) for proof and collector issues |
No American Women Quarter was struck in 90% silver. The Mint moved its silver proof sets to .999 fine silver with the 2019-dated issues, before this program began.
Frequently asked questions
- How much is the Maya Angelou quarter worth?
- Twenty-five cents in circulated condition. An uncirculated example from a Mint roll or bag trades for one to two dollars.
- How many Maya Angelou quarters were made?
- 495,800,000 in total: 237,600,000 at Philadelphia and 258,200,000 at Denver.
- When was the Maya Angelou quarter released?
- It entered circulation on 10 January 2022.
- Who designed the Maya Angelou quarter?
- The reverse was designed by Emily Damstra of the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program and sculpted by U.S. Mint medallic artist Craig A. Campbell. The obverse, shared by all 20 coins, is by Laura Gardin Fraser.
- What is on the back of the Maya Angelou quarter?
- Maya Angelou with her arms uplifted, in front of a bird in flight and a rising sun. The Mint says these images were inspired by her poetry and are symbolic of the way she lived.
Sources
- Mintage figures: U.S. Mint circulating coin production dataset.
- Designer and sculptor credits: U.S. Mint, cross-checked against the artists' initials on the coin.
- Coin photograph: United States Mint image.
- United States Mint Announces Designs for 2022 American Women Quarters Program Coins (6 October 2021)
- United States Mint Begins Shipping First American Women Quarters Program Coins (10 January 2022)
- Maya Angelou, Wikipedia
- Maya Angelou, Academy of American Poets (poets.org)
- Maya Angelou, Wake Forest Magazine
- Family obituary, Maya Angelou, Wake Forest University
- Remembering and Celebrating the Life of Dr. Maya Angelou, The White House (archived)
Last verified: October 2026. Mintage figures are final.