COLUMBUS — The committee that will choose Ohio's quarter says stars added by the U.S. Mint clutter the designs and that some elements now are historically inaccurate.

        “We are being boxed into choices that we don't think represent the design concepts that we originally chose,” Beth Deisher, a committee member and editor of Coin World magazine, said Wednesday.

An Ohio committee submitted these six designs for the state quarter to the U.S. Mint... | ZOOM |

... and was dismayed to have these four altered designs come back. (Associated Press) | ZOOM |

        Since 1999, the Mint has released five new state quarters each year and will do so over 10 years. Ohio's coin is to be the 17th — for the 17th state in the union — and will be released next spring.

        The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts will meet today in Washington, D.C., to recommend designs to the Treasury secretary. If the commission accepts the Mint's four designs for Ohio, the state will have to choose its quarter from among them.

        “I just want to make sure our coin comes out just the way we want it because it's something that we're going to have to live with for decades,” said Steve George, the executive director of the Ohio Bicentennial Commission and and one of 11 members of the Ohio Commemorative Quarter Program Committee.

        “I don't want to look at it and wince,” he added.

        The Ohio committee, which received the revised designs late last week, had thought the Mint engravers were to make changes that would make the coin easier to produce.

        Michael White, the Mint's spokesman, said the Mint requests concepts — not designs — from the states so that its engravers can create the designs based on the concepts.

        The state committee chose designs with four themes: Birthplace of Aviation, Spirit of Invention, Heroes of Aviation, and Buckeye State, which has a cardinal perched on buckeye leaves.

        The Mint almost completely redesigned the Heroes of Aviation coin and made minor changes to the three other drawings.

        The Heroes of Aviation quarter “gives no context of what is happening,” Ms. Deisher said. “We were trying to communicate that all of these feats were accomplished by Ohio natives and their contributions were to the world, not just Ohio. That's lost with what the Mint sent back.”

        Moreover, she said, the Mint's renderings are historically inaccurate.

        The revised designs show the Wright brothers' plane with boxed wings instead of pointed wings and with too many rods connecting the top and bottom wings, she said. Edison's light bulb was more rounded and longer than what the Mint depicted, she added.

After the riots in Cincinnati: Continuing coverage
Three dead in Queensgate wreck
Taft fights additional budget cuts
Auditor out of ballpark plan
Death case enters new territory
Arrests point to Oxy problem
City in turmoil
Sycamore, UC to be partners
To disabled, one friend makes all the difference
Fire, EMS levy renewal before voters
Much new at Fort Ancient
Township limits billboard ads
Boone Co. eager for jail, justice building
Boone looks forward to new jail, justice center
Campaign group sues over chamber's anti-Resnick ads
Coin designers in flap with Mint
Deters runs hard for GOP nod
Interest groups spend big on lobbying
Labor secretary relents, will run benefit program
Luken gets OK to buy West End townhouse
N. Ky. agency helps poor buy homes
New leader voted by teachers
OxyContin abuse task force meets
Police increase security for Derby festival
Report: Better teachers equal better students
Township asks levy renewal
Two bank holdups may be linked
White cop who shot black driver cleared
2-year-old boy's death called suspicious
Kentucky News Briefs
Tristate A.M. Report