It’s time once again for the TEC Design Contest! The theme this year is “Happy Birthday, America” This
theme will allow you to let your imagination run free. It can be anything related to The United States. Your
favorite place, favorite event, favorite person, it is entirely up to you, as long as it represents the good ole
U.S.A. The winning designs will be announced in the May TEC News. TEC will produce the winning design on
U.S. cents and distribute one to each TEC member. Young Numismatist members will be judged
separately from regular members and a winner from each group will be selected.
The winning designer of each group will receive:
• 25 elongated cents rolled with the winning design.
• One set of denominational elongated coins rolled with the winning design (quarter, dime, nickel, cent).
• One free year of TEC membership. (The free year of membership must be used by the winner
unless he/she is a Life or Honorary Member, in which case he/she may elect to “gift” a year’s
membership to a non-member. If the winner is already pre-paid for future years, the closest unpaid
year will be considered the awarded year.)
• The winner will be a member of the judging panel for next year’s contest.
Entries will be judged on the following:
• Originality
• Illustration of the design theme – “Happy Birthday, America”
• Compatibility with size/engraving limitations
• Note: Any design considered inappropriate will be disqualified.
The following rules apply:
• All active Regular, Young Numismatist, Associate, Life, and Honorary members are eligible to
participate. If you haven’t paid your dues for 2026, please do so to enter the contest.
• Each TEC member is limited to two (2) entries.
• Please do not use copyrighted images or logos.
• Entries must be submitted on this official entry form (or a photocopy of it) by either email or US Postal
Mail by March 17, 2026. When submitting via email, please consider image quality as entries are
provided to the judges “as received.” When submitting U.S. Postal Mail please allow extra time for
delivery to ensure that it will arrive prior to the deadline. We don’t want anyone to be left out.
• Additional entry forms are available at www.tecnews.org.
• “TEC” and “2026” must appear somewhere in the design.
Since the design will be rolled on cents, TEC reserves the right to modify the winning design for space or
aesthetic reasons. Please use the template on the reverse of this form, avoid very small details and very
small text, and make your drawing as clean as you can. Please do NOT put your initials on the design to
keep the entries anonymous, your initials will be added prior to rolling the coins.
***Entries MUST be received NO LATER THAN March 17, 2026***