The thing is, there were like five designs for each that were going through the approval process. The legislation had called for civil rights themes to be part of it. I don't know why, I would have preferred to keep with 1776 for rather obvious reasons. Some of those designs were blegh.
Many, like the dime shown, used classic coinage type imagery.
Anyways, Bessent ditch them for being woke, even the classical styled ones (except the dime). He could have at least stuck with those, that's what I was hoping for ever since I saw the proposed designs.
They got rid of the committee that normally reviews and approves coin designs.
So Bessent approved these, the quarters recycling images from older coins. If you remember the presidential dollars, you'll recognize Washington and Madison, which always looked at tad too angry to me.
The Mayflower quarter uses the reverse from the 1920 - 21 Pilgrim commemorative half dollar.
The Declaration of Independence quarter reuses the Jefferson inaugural medal obverse.
Lincoln comes from a more recent commemorative silver dollar, the reverse coming from one of the proposed designs.
Statue of Liberty half is ok, but it's been overdone from various angles already. The handing of the torch reverse, like most of the others, was from the proposed designs. But it also looks like an Olympic silver dollar commemorative from a few decades ago. I see what they're trying to do there, but I never liked the original either, looks just too bland.
