2009-D John Tyler

Denver struck 43,540,000 John Tyler dollars in 2009, the second design of the year after James Polk and ahead of William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor. The mintage marks a sharp step down from the 61-million-plus Denver figures of 2008, a cut that reflected the Federal Reserve sitting on tens of millions of unreleased Presidential Dollars from earlier issues. Tyler entered general circulation on May 21, 2009. Don Everhart designed both sides of the coin: the obverse portrait of Tyler with the inscription JOHN TYLER, 10TH PRESIDENT, 1841-1845, and the Statue of Liberty reverse common to every business-strike Presidential Dollar through 2016. The "D" mintmark sits on the edge alongside the date and the mottoes, applied in a third strike after the obverse and reverse dies pressed the faces.

Two issues recur on 2009-dated Tyler dollars at the cherry-picking level. The first is missing-edge-lettering errors, where a finished planchet bypassed the edge press entirely; these are scarcer on Tyler than on the 2007 Washington issue that triggered the original "Godless dollar" media coverage but still authentic when slabbed. The second is weak strikes on Tyler's hair behind the ear and across his temple, the first areas to soften on this die pair, which separates an MS65 from an MS66 more often than bag marks do. Doubled edge lettering, where the edge press struck twice, is also catalogued and trades as a minor variety rather than a premium error. Authentication should come through PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, or NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company, since plain-edge fakes circulate.

For the date-and-mintmark collector, the 2009-D Tyler is a common coin in any circulated grade and inexpensive through MS66. The condition rarity sits at MS67 and above, where strike sharpness on the central obverse and clean fields around the portrait thin the population sharply. Most buyers acquire this issue through original Mint-wrapped rolls or two-coin Philadelphia and Denver sets rather than slabbed singles, and a clean MS66 pulled from an unsearched roll remains a realistic target at modest cost. For program-wide context including the 2012 transition to collector-only distribution, see the Presidential Dollar series history.