2022-D Vermont

The 2022-D Vermont Innovation Dollar is the Denver share of the fourteenth state issue in the program, struck for the state admitted to the Union March 4, 1791 as the first non-original-13. The reverse honors the modern snowboard. Vermont's anchor in that story is Burton Snowboards, which Jake Burton Carpenter founded in 1977 by hand-building decks in a Londonderry garage before relocating the company to Manchester and eventually Burlington. Released April 26, 2022, the design was developed in collaboration with Burton and depicts a snowboarder mid-melon-grab against a mountainous winter skyline. The subject is unusual for the program because most state designs honor an inventor or institution; here the device honors a sport that grew into a Vermont industry, with Stratton Mountain hosting the U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships from 1985 onward.

What collectors look for on the Denver issue is strike consistency on the snowboarder's torso and on the highest mountain peak in the upper field, both of which sit above the average die-fill plane and show weak transfer first when dies wear. Manganese-brass dollars are notorious for spotting and tone streaks because the alloy reacts with skin oil and ambient sulfur, so original-skin examples in capsules outclass loose roll coins quickly. The 452,775-piece Denver mintage matches the program's standing pattern of bag and roll sales straight from the Mint with no general circulation push, so almost every survivor came out of a Mint product and carries minimal handling. Authentication risk is low; counterfeiters do not target a sub-two-dollar manganese-brass dollar. The other diagnostic is the parallel score lines on the snowboard deck, which on a sharp Denver strike read as crisp incused grooves rather than mushy depressions.

The 2022-D sits in the broad regular tier of the Innovation series. It is a common date by mintage, but the graded population at PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC is much thinner than that figure suggests because most coins stayed in original Mint rolls and never reached a slab. Realistic acquisition is a clean BU example for low single digits, with MS67 coins still affordable when they appear. For the broader program context, see the American Innovation Dollar series history.