The 2019 Georgia American Innovation Dollar was the fourth regular issue of the series. The coin recognizes the Trustees’ Garden, established in Savannah, Georgia in 1734.
General James Edward Oglethorpe was a British soldier, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and the founder of the colony of Georgia. Two years after the colony was founded, Oglethorpe established the Trustees’ Garden. The garden included ten acres of land dedicated to botany and agriculture and served as an agricultural experiment station for semitropical products. Despite some modest success, the Trustees’ Garden would ultimately fail in the 1740’s due to the climate, lack of manpower, and inconsistent support.
The reverse design of the coin features a hand planting seeds in the garden. A variety of plants are shown, including an orange tree seedling, sassafras, grapes, white mulberry, flax, peaches, and olive. The inscriptions read “Georgia”, “Trustees’ Garden” and “United States of America”. The reverse was designed by Emily Damstra and sculpted by Michael Gaudioso.
2019 Georgia American Innovation Dollar Specifications
- Composition: 88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese, 2% nickel
- Diameter: 26.5 mm
- Weight: 8.1g
- Thickness: 2.0 mm
- Edge: Lettered
