2019-P War in the Pacific

War in the Pacific National Historical Park on Guam took the third 2019 ATB slot and the highest Philadelphia mintage of the year at 204,800,000 pieces. The park preserves seven sites associated with the 1944 Guam campaign and the broader Pacific theater, and David Westwood built his reverse around Allied soldiers wading ashore at a landing, weapons raised and helmets visible against the surf line. The composition is action-oriented in a way few ATB designs attempt, with three figures in different stages of stride and a horizon line that sits noticeably high on the planchet. The high horizon leaves more lower-field area than usual, which gives the design a heavier visual weight in the bottom third.

Strike characteristics on the issue cluster at the soldiers' helmets, the rifle silhouettes, and the wave texture at the wading line. MS66 examples need three distinct helmet outlines and at least partial weapon definition for the grade to hold; MS67 coins add crisp rifle detail and visible water texture along the wave front. Philadelphia dies during the 2019 cycle handled the figure-and-water composition adequately, but late-state coins lose helmet definition first and then wave texture. The dual-element softening means raw cherry-picking starts with helmet count and proceeds to the water surface. The clad composition is the standard 75% copper-nickel over a pure copper core at 5.67 grams. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC handle premium-grade slabbing for the issue.

The 2019-P War in the Pacific is a Regular classification entry, common raw and through MS66 and behaving as a condition rarity at MS68 because of the dense figure-and-water relief. The 2019-W release for the same design, 2 million pieces from the historic first West Point circulating run, sits in a separate catalog tier and pricing band. Population reports show the Philadelphia issue moderately available at MS67. Registry collectors building the 56-coin clad set pair the P and D 2019 War in the Pacific as a single tier. For the broader story of the ATB program and the series' design arc, see the Washington ATB series history.