Kentucky Bluegrass

The United States Mint American Innovation $1 Coin Program is a multi-year series honoring innovation and innovators with $1 coins from each State, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands.

The American Innovation $1 Coin representing Kentucky recognizes the invention of bluegrass music. Bluegrass has roots in traditional English, Scottish, and Irish ballads and dance tunes, as well as in traditional African-American blues and jazz. The genre derives its name from the band “Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys,” which has been dubbed the “Original Bluegrass Band.”

Bluegrass historians point to Bill Monroe’s first Columbia sessions in 1946 as the advent of bluegrass music as we know it today: including breakneck tempos, sophisticated vocal harmony arrangements, and instrumental proficiency demonstrated in solos or “breaks” on the mandolin, banjo, and fiddle.

The reverse (tails) design features a banjo, an important bluegrass instrument, tilted to one side, alluding to the rhythm and movement of the music. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “BLUEGRASS,” and “KENTUCKY.”

The edge-incused inscriptions are “2022,” mint mark, and “E PLURIBUS UNUM.”

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