The Wisconsin state quarter, released in 2004, features a dairy cow, cheese, and corn, reflecting the state’s agricultural industry. Wisconsin is known as the Dairy State and is the largest producer of cheese in the US. The state motto, “Forward,” is also displayed on the quarter. The design was chosen from over 9,000 submissions and was produced in both Philadelphia and Denver. Some quarters have a rare error where extra corn husks appear, making them valuable to collectors.
The Wisconsin state quarter was issued by the United States Mint in 2004 as the 30th state quarter to be issued out of 50 states. That same year, the United States produced state quarters for Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Iowa, and Wisconsin’s was the last of the group of five to be produced in October of that year. The back side of the Wisconsin state quarter features images of a dairy cow, a round block of cheese with a slice removed, and an ear of corn. These have been staple agricultural crops since the time of its founding as a state of the United States in 1848.
The state animal for Wisconsin is the badger, and it is commonly known as the state of the badger as it remained largely rural and forested as of 2011, with a significant population of badgers. The animal has not been featured in the neighborhood, however, as Wisconsin has earned the name Dairy State or America’s Dairyland. In the early 1890s, Wisconsin farmers began to switch from grain to dairy production as the land was more suitable for raising dairy cattle, with much of the land being hilly and grass-covered.
Among U.S. states, Wisconsin remains the largest producer of cheese, second only to California in overall dairy products, which account for 54 percent of its farm profits as of 2011. The Wisconsin state quarter stands focuses on the most important characteristics of a dairy cow and a block of cheese, therefore, due to these agricultural facts. There are an estimated 1,250,000 dairy cows in Wisconsin, about one cow for every five people living there. The state produces 24,000,000,000 pounds (1,088,621,688 kilograms) of cheese annually, making up 26% of the United States’ national cheese production. This includes 350 different cheese varieties produced by more than 1,200 licensed Wisconsin cheese makers.
State emblems on specialty districts issued by the United States are usually designed to reflect major products produced by states. Corn is also featured prominently on the backside of the Wisconsin state quarter, producing corn for feed for cattle and other livestock, as well as corn for the human food supply. It ranks fifth overall in corn production nationwide. In the issue of commemorative quarters, the Wisconsin state quarter had a defect in some samples where an extra shell or two appeared in the minted image for the corn stalk. These rare errors in the minting process have made quarters with extra husks on the rare coin market 2,000 times the actual value of the quarter itself.
The back side of the Wisconsin state quarter also displays a banner with the word “Forward,” which is the state motto. The engraver who supervised the quarter’s production was Alfred F. Maletsky, an official engraver for the United States Mint, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He worked on a design that was chosen from over 9,000 different possible designs submitted by state residents, which were narrowed down to six finalists by a 23-member Wisconsin Commemorative Quarter Council. Although the number of quarters minted for Wisconsin was the lowest for all five quarters produced in 2004, 226,400,000 were minted in Philadelphia and 226,800,000 were minted in Denver, Colorado.
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