What a Mess. The Native American $1 Coin Act.

/ Adam Nash

Oh boy.  Caught this article about The Native American $1 Coin Act.  What a mess.

In the final step before becoming a law, congress presented the president with H.R. 2358, Native American $1 Coin Act, for his signature. Introduced in the House of Representatives by Dale Kildee (D-MI 5th), and expected to be signed by the president, the bill calls for the reverse of the Sacagawea Dollar be redesigned every year to commemorate “of Native Americans and the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans to the development of the United States and the history of the United States.” The obverse will continue to have the Sacagawea design.

You know, this is pretty much “jump the shark” territory for coin series.  After all, it’s not like there is any demand for the Sacagawea dollar coins now.  Frankly, they haven’t even found a use for the original mintage from the year 2000.

The Presidential $1 Dollar Coins seem to have decent demand with collectors, but no one seems to be using these in circulation for obvious reasons – until the $1 Bill goes away, there’s just no reason to.

Creating new series of specialty faces on circulating coins is not a guaranteed winner… just ask the 10 people who actually cared about the 5 versions of the Nickel that went out in 2004-2006.  Oh, did you miss that series?  🙂

The US is already dealing with:

  • The end of the highly successful US State Quarter series, which finishes off in 2008 with the last five states.  Of course, H.R. 392 would like to extend it to the District of Columbia and the five US territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands).
  • The next decade of US Presidential $1 Dollar Coins, at a rate of 4 per year, through 2016 at least.
  • The next decade of US Presidential First Spouse gold coins, at a rate of 4 per year.
  • The new 24K Gold Buffalo 0.9999 pure bullion coin.
  • The 2009 Penny series to celebrate a century of the Lincoln cent.

So, my apologies to the US Congreesmen sponsoring HR 2358. You can count me out on any series based on the Sacagawea dollar.

5 thoughts on “What a Mess. The Native American $1 Coin Act.”

  1. Pingback: Proof That I Don’t Like All US Coin Programs « Psychohistory

  2. Pingback: New eBay Guide: The Native American $1 Dollar Coin Program « Psychohistory

  3. Dear Adam,

    Something has been bugging me, and I think you are the perfect guy to solve my problem. I went to the bank the other day and realized they had single 2009 Sacagawea they would give to any customer that requested them. I knew that after 2001, these coins were not released for circulation and the mintage figures went down to about 5-7 million per year. I did some more research and saw that this number rose in 2008 to 24.64 million.

    Why did they print so many more in 2008.

    Were 2008 and 2009 coins released for circulation?

    If not, why are they at my bank?

    I hope to hear back from you soon.

    Best wishes,

    Dimitri

    • My understanding is that the laws that authorized the Presidential dollars required that a certain percentage of all dollar coins be Sacagawea. So when they ramped up production in 2007+ for the Presidential dollar, they had to ramp up Sacagawea too.

      Adam

      • OK, thanks alot.
        One last quick question…why are there 2009 coins at the bank if they are supposed to be uncirculated?

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