2024-P Patsy Takemoto Mink

Patsy Matsu Takemoto was born on Maui in 1927 to second-generation Japanese American parents, valedictorian of her high school class in 1944 even as her community lived under the legal shadow of wartime exclusion. Rejected by every medical school she applied to despite a strong academic record, she pivoted to law at the University of Chicago, graduated in 1951, and built a Honolulu practice after Hawaii's bar initially refused to consider her on grounds of her marriage to John Mink. Elected to the United States House from Hawaii in 1964 and seated in January 1965, she became the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman in Congress. Her twenty-four years on Capitol Hill produced the Education Amendments of 1972, whose Title IX provision she principally authored and which today carries her name. The Philadelphia Mint struck 210,200,000 of her 2024 quarter, the highest mintage of any single facility across either 2024 American Women design.

The reverse, designed by Artistic Infusion Program artist Elana Hagler, presents Mink in a forward-looking pose with imagery referencing her legislative achievement on Title IX. The portrait reads cleanly at quarter scale, with hair detail and inscription cleanly executed in master die work. Specifications match all program circulating issues: 91.67 percent copper and 8.33 percent nickel clad over pure copper core, weight 5.67 grams, diameter 24.3 millimeters, reeded edge, no mintmark for the Philadelphia strike on this denomination. Authentication for a Philadelphia business strike rests on weight tolerance around 5.67 grams, undamaged reeding without filing or alteration, and the absence of any mintmark below Washington's queue.

The high production number ensures inexpensive examples through MS66, with MS67 readily available through Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC). Roll searchers and registry collectors both rely on the standard population reports from major grading services to track availability at the gem-grade level, where competition determines premium structure. Series context appears in the Washington Quarters (American Women) series history.