Each image is taken from the reverse of a coin in the 50 State Quarter Program [clued by "financial reverses", "state", "quarters"]. To solve the puzzle, you need to compare each image with the original and identify the missing letter [loosely clued by "return...to its original state"].
The states are:
| New Jersey | North Carolina | Ohio | Vermont | Maryland |
| Indiana | Connecticut | Pennsylvania | Mississippi | Louisiana |
| South Carolina | New York | Georgia | Kentucky | Virginia |
| Massachusetts | Delaware | New Hampshire | Rhode Island | Tennessee |
And the original images are:
Plugging the missing letters into the grid and reading left to right and down gives you FINAL RELEASE THIS YEAR, which clues the last state quarter scheduled for release in 2003: ARKANSAS.
To find the bigram, you need to see that some images are also flipped horizontally [clued by "partial setback"]. Marking these images on the grid spells out (graphically) the bigram LL.