Heidi Wastweet is an award-winning medallic artist.

Over the course of her 30-year career, she has designed more than 1,000 coins, medals, and tokens, mostly for private mints.

From 2010 to 2018, Heidi sat on the CCAC, where she, along with other members of the art community and general public, deliberated on thedirection of American coin and medal design.

If you have purchased a coin or medal from the U.S. Mint made within the past eight years, odds are that Heidi had a role to play in the designprocess.

What is the state of coin and medal design in America and what can be done to improve upon it?

We ask Heidi these questions and more, this week on the CoinWeek Podcast.

To listen to the complete podcast, see:
CoinWeek Podcast #103: Coin DesignHighs and Lows with Heidi Wastweet (https://coinweek.com/coinweek-podcast/coinweek-podcast-coin-design-highs-and-lows-with-heidi-wastweet/)

Today's public meeting of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) centered on the design of a dollar coin proposed to be the first mintedunder the American Innovation $1 Coin Act. The program's coins are scheduled to share a common Statue of Liberty design on the obverse. The CCACfocused more on which of the eight designs submitted for the reverse was to be recommended to the secretary of the Treasury. Round dissatisfactionwith the portfolio prompted a motion to not recommend any of the reverse designs to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The motion passed unanimously,10-0, and various committee members voiced their dissatisfaction with the reverse designs, the proposed obverse design, and the program ingeneral.

Member Dennis Tucker, the committee's numismatic specialist, pointed out that the legend on the reverse of the 2018 coin designs, mandated bylegislation, may be misleading, since the name of the program is "American Innovation" and not "American Innovators," the latter of which is to beinscribed on the coin. He contends that this narrowing of focus may limit designs to specific people who are innovators and not larger ideas orthemes about American innovation that can be expressed on coinage. "Making the coin's legend consistent with the language of the legislation isCopywriting 101," said Tucker, who serves as publisher for Whitman Publishing, LLC, which releases the annual Guide Book of United StatesCoins. "Innovations aren't necessarily physical. If a state or territory innovated in a non-physical way-for example, it was the first state toallow women to vote; or it innovated in religious freedom-then innovators isn't the right word." He pointed out that innovation isn't limited toinventions or patents, but could be philosophical, cultural, artistic, linguistic, social, creative, or otherwise intangible, and not necessarilyrequiring a single person as innovator.

Donald Scarinci, the senior member of the committee, voiced his disappointment toward the portfolio, saying that it was "not just a failure to thehobby community, but a failure to the greatest country on Earth." Scarinci also drew a comparison between American coin designs and foreign coindesigns, noting that the former tends to be outdone by the latter. In a bold move, he called for a collector boycott of the program.

To read the complete article, see:
The CCACunanimously rejects the reverse designs submitted for the 2018 American Innovation $1 coin(http://news.coinupdate.com/the-ccac-unanimously-rejects-the-reverse-designs-submitted-for-the-2018-american-innovation-1-coin/)

To see the complete set of proposed designs, see:
CCAC Meeting Images for the 2018 American Innovation $1 CoinProgram (https://www.usmint.gov/news/ccac-meetings/2018-american-innovation-dollar-coin)

Please, make it stop!

Put before the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) on Thursday, July 31 was a portfolio of designs for the first coin of an ill-conceivednew supposedly circulating commemorative coin series that will be produced over the course of the next decade and a half by the United StatesMint.

Luckily for the hobby and the public at-large, the CCAC soundly rejected these designs with a unanimous 10-0 vote. Had the final tally been 100-0against, the proposed designs would not have received a sufficient rebuke.

To read the complete article, see:
Make it Stop: Perhaps WorstConceived US Coin Design Candidates Revealed(https://coinweek.com/us-mint-news/make-it-stop-perhaps-worst-conceived-us-coin-design-candidates-revealed/)

To read the complete article, see:
Request for applicationsfor appointment to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee(http://news.coinupdate.com/request-for-applications-for-appointment-to-the-citizens-coinage-advisory-committee-2/)