The United States Mint (Mint) today released the designs for the 2026 American Innovation $1 Coin Program. The 2026 designs honor innovations and/or innovators from Iowa, Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota.
The California design features Steve Jobs:
This design presents a young Steve Jobs sitting in front of a quintessentially northern California landscape of oak-covered rolling hills. His posture and expression, as he is captured in a moment of reflection, show how this environment inspired his vision to transform complex technology into something as intuitive and organic as nature itself. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and “CALIFORNIA.” Additional inscriptions are “STEVE JOBS” and “MAKE SOMETHING WONDERFUL.”
This is the design recommended by Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this year. It doesn’t exactly scream California innovation! to me, though—perhaps it needs a Macintosh in Steve’s lap.
(This is not the design the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee preferred, which featured Steve as older and wearing glasses and a turtleneck. That design, while certainly a more familiar image, placed even greater emphasis on the man. This design at least alludes to California as a source of inspiration.)
The $1 coins will sell for $13.25 each.