Zitkala-Ša Quarter: Value, Mintage and Errors

What this coin looks like

The reverse depicts Zitkala-Ša in traditional Yankton Sioux dress, holding a book that the Mint says represents her work as an author and her successful activism for Native American rights. Behind her, a stylized sun represents her work on The Sun Dance Opera, and a cardinal symbolizes her name, which translates to "Red Bird." A Yankton Sioux-inspired diamond pattern sits underneath the sun. The inscriptions "AUTHOR," "ACTIVIST" and "COMPOSER" sum up her career.

Artistic Infusion Program designer Don Everhart created the design, and U.S. Mint Medallic Artist Renata Gordon sculpted it. Gordon said she "stayed faithful to the design down to the most minute detail" because much of the regalia is steeped in Native American symbolism and meaning. The Mint began shipping the coin, the fifth and last of the 2024 American Women Quarters, on 21 October 2024.

The reverse inscriptions read:

• UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• E PLURIBUS UNUM
• AUTHOR
• ACTIVIST
• COMPOSER
• 25 CENTS
• ZITKALA-ŠA

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 Zitkala-Ša quarter an error?

No error or variety unique to this coin is documented in the grading-service and variety sources this site checks. That is the normal situation: only five of the 20 designs (Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, Edith Kanakaʻole, Bessie Coleman and Mary Edwards Walker) have a documented error or variety.

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?

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

San Francisco (S) figures are not shown because the Mint has never published per-design mintages for S-mint American Women Quarters. Any S figure published elsewhere is a secondary-source estimate, and the two most commonly cited sets contradict each other.

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 2024 Zitkala-Ša quarter directly to collectors. None were released into circulation.

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 Zitkala-Ša?

Zitkala-Ša, whose name means "Red Bird," was born on 22 February 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in what is now South Dakota. Her mother was Ellen Simmons; her father, a Frenchman named Felker, left the family when she was very young. She was also known as Gertrude Simmons and, after her marriage, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin.

In 1884, at age eight, she was taken by Quaker missionaries to White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana, a boarding school where, as the Mint notes, her native culture and traditions were prohibited. She went home to the reservation in 1887, returned to White's at 15 to study piano and violin, and graduated in June 1895, giving a speech on women's rights. She attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, on a scholarship but left in 1897, six weeks before she was to graduate, and then studied violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

She taught music at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and in 1900 played violin with the Carlisle Indian Band at the Paris Exposition. That year her autobiographical essays, including "An Indian Teacher Among Indians," appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and in 1901 she published Old Indian Legends, a collection of Dakota stories. She was dismissed from Carlisle in 1901 after conflict with its founder, Richard Henry Pratt.

In 1902 she married Raymond Talephause Bonnin, and the couple lived and worked for about 14 years on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah, where their son, Raymond Ohiya Bonnin, was born. There she collaborated with composer William F. Hanson on The Sun Dance Opera, writing its libretto and songs. It premiered in Vernal, Utah, in February 1913 and is considered the first American Indian opera; it centered on the Sun Dance, a sacred ceremony the federal government had outlawed.

In 1916 the Society of American Indians made her its national secretary, and the family moved to Washington, D.C. She edited the society's American Indian Magazine from 1918 to 1919 and published American Indian Stories in 1921. She campaigned for Native Americans' right to U.S. citizenship, which Congress granted to most Native people through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924; as the National Park Service notes, the act did not guarantee the vote, because states kept control of voting rules. That year she co-wrote the report Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians with Charles H. Fabens and Matthew K. Sniffen, which helped prompt a federal investigation into the exploitation of Native Americans for their oil-rich lands.

In 1926 she and her husband founded the National Council of American Indians, and she served as its president until her death. Zitkala-Ša died in Washington, D.C., on 26 January 1938, at age 61. Because her husband had been an Army captain, she is buried beside him in Arlington National Cemetery.

She was selected as a Yankton Sioux writer, composer, educator and political activist who, in the Mint's words, fought for Native Americans' right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied.

The design

Specifications

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.

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.
• U.S. Mint: United States Mint Announces Designs for 2024 American Women Quarters Program Coins
• U.S. Mint: United States Mint Begins Shipping 2024 American Women Quarters Honoring Zitkala-Ša on October 21
• U.S. Mint: 2024 American Women Quarters Program Honorees Announced
• National Park Service: Zitkala-Ša
• Wikipedia: Zitkala-Ša

Last verified: October 2026. Mintage figures are final.