2009-D James K. Polk

Denver delivered 41,720,000 Polk dollars in 2009, the third design in the Presidential lineup that year and the eleventh in the program overall, released August 20, 2009 between the Tyler dollar in May and the Taylor dollar in November. The Denver Polk mintage trails its Philadelphia counterpart by about five million pieces and continues the steep two-year drop from the 88-million-plus Denver figures that opened the program in 2007. By August 2009 the Federal Reserve was holding sizable inventories of unreleased 2007 and 2008 dollars in vault storage, and the Mint cut Denver's planned 2009 production accordingly across all four designs. Susan Gamble drew the obverse portrait of the eleventh president, sculpted by Charles Vickers, paired with Don Everhart's Statue of Liberty reverse used on every business-strike Presidential Dollar.

Polk's portrait carries enough relief in the brow and shirt-collar area that strike softness in those zones is the most common reason a 2009-D coin grades Mint State 65 instead of Mint State 66. Reverse weakness on the torch flame appears at roughly the same rate as on the 2008 Van Buren and shows particularly under angled light. The D mintmark sits on the edge alongside the date and the mottoes, applied as a third strike after the obverse and reverse were stamped, which means missing-edge-lettering errors remain a low-rate possibility on 2009 issues even though the worst of the edge-press misfeeds were corrected after the 2007 Washington run. Doubled-edge-lettering pieces also surface occasionally and are catalogued as minor varieties.

The 2009-D Polk is a common date in any circulated grade and inexpensive through Mint State 66. Condition rarity sits at Mint State 67 and above, where bag marks and strike softness on the high points thin the certified population. Most acquisitions go through original Mint-wrapped rolls or two-coin Philadelphia and Denver sets rather than slabbed singles, and a clean Mint State 66 pulled from an unsearched roll is a realistic goal at modest cost. For broader background see the Presidential Dollar series history.