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, either by ratifying the Constitution or being accepted into the Union. 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.

Virginia became a state on June 25th, 1788, and was the tenth of the 50 State Quarters to be issued. In 1607 three English ships - Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery - arrived in the territory that would later become Virginia and established Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. These three ships are depicted on the coin, along with what would become quadricentennial (400th anniversary) date of Jamestown's founding.