Five of these unique coins were released over the course of each year, every one representing a different state. The order of their release was determined by when that state became an official part of the USA. The obverse of the coins features the standard imagery of 25-cent pieces – a profile portrait of George Washington – but the reverse features an array of images and symbols representing the history and culture of that particular state. The reverse also features the year that the coin was cast and the year of the state’s official founding.

New Jersey became a state on December 18th, 1787, and was the third of the 50 State Quarters to be issued. On Christmas Night, 1776, George Washington and his men crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey and were able to take the enemy completely by surprise, capturing the towns of Trenton and Princeton. These victories inspired Emmanuel Leutze’s famous painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware”, and the imagery on the coin is based on that painting.