Dollar Coin Debuts

The United States Mint announced that it will issue a $1 coin featuring an image of America’s first President, George Washington, on February 15, 2007. This will be the first of a series of coins honoring the nation’s Presidents, to be issued in the order the Presidents served. Coins will be issued every 3 months, the first four to be minted in 2007 will feature images of Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. The designs can be found on the U.S. Mint website. So far, the Fed has ordered 300 million of the Washington coins.

This is the 14th dollar coin series produced by the Mint. Earlier attempts to introduce a one-dollar coin to replace paper money featured artwork depicting Susan B. Anthony, a women’s rights activist, and Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian who helped the Lewis and Clark expedition. Both attempts were unsuccessful, as millions of coins were left unused and met little demand among general public.

Replacing the dollar bill with a coin can save hundreds of millions in printing costs annually, but for now both are allowed to stay, as public doesn’t seem to be very well disposed toward the idea of using coins instead of bills. A poll conducted by AP-Ipsos found that half of the participants opposed having both a dollar bill and coin, and ¾ of those surveyed preferred having the dollar bill instead of a coin. Mostly people prefer the bill because, even though it’s not that durable, it’s lighter and easier to carry.

Officials hope that the new coins will stir collectors’ interest, and will be useful for vending machines accommodated for the year 2000’s Sacagawea dollar, as the size and weight are maintained. The coin will be made of a similar material with the addition of a special compound that will keep it from tarnishing. The coins will have edge inscription featuring the words “In God We Trust”, “E Pluribus Unum”, the date of minting and the mintmark, something quite special for one-dollar coins. The reverse design features the Statue of Liberty.

Each president will only have one coin issued in his honor, regardless of the number of consecutive terms he’s served. President Grover Cleveland will, however, be featured on two coins, because he served two non-consecutive terms. No living President, whether current or former will appear on dollar coins, because depicting a living person on the Legal Tender is against U.S. Law and tradition. Under the Presidential Coin Act of 2005, coins of deceased former presidents will not be made until 2 years have passed since the date of death. Richard M. Nixon is currently the last name on the list, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2016.

The John Adams coin is scheduled for mid-May, the Thomas Jefferson dollar should be released in August, and the coin honoring James Madison will probably come out in November. The idea of rotating designs was taken from the 50-state quarter program, which was launched in 1999 and featured 5 state designs each year.