2013-D William Howard Taft, NIFC

Denver struck 3,920,000 William Howard Taft dollars in 2013, the third design of the program year and released July 9, 2013, after the McKinley issue in February and the Roosevelt issue in April. The figure fits the early-NIFC production scale established when the Treasury suspended Federal Reserve releases of new Presidential Dollars effective December 13, 2011, citing a stockpile of more than 1.4 billion unwanted coins in Reserve vaults. From 2012 forward Mint output existed only to satisfy the Presidential $1 Coin Act and to supply collector products. Don Everhart designed and sculpted the obverse Taft portrait and the Statue of Liberty reverse, with the obverse legend WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, 27TH PRESIDENT, 1909-1913. Taft is the only person to hold both the presidency and the chief justiceship of the United States, the latter from 1921 to 1930 under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

Strike on the Denver Taft is generally clean across the central portrait, with the high points of the hair above the temple and the relief of the mustache the first features to soften under die wear. Manganese-brass tones aggressively to honey, olive, or rose within a year or two of striking; bright lemon-yellow surfaces on a coin a decade after issue almost always indicate cleaning, not preserved original color. Plain-edge errors, where a planchet bypassed the third-strike edge-lettering press that applies the date, mintmark, E PLURIBUS UNUM, and IN GOD WE TRUST, are essentially unknown on the 2013-D because the smaller NIFC-era batches received closer post-strike inspection than the high-volume 2007-2011 runs. Bag and roll handling marks remain the dominant grade-limiter at MS66 and MS67.

The 2013-D Taft sold to collectors only, packaged in 25-coin rolls, 250-coin boxes, and the annual Mint Set. Original Mint-wrapped rolls remain the efficient path for collectors building a year-set or chasing upper-end Mint State examples; certified MS67 coins trade for modest premiums, with MS68 the legitimate condition-rarity tier. The combined 2013 Taft total of 8.68 million across both circulation mints sits among the lower individual-design totals in the 40-coin program. For broader background on the December 2011 NIFC cutover, see the Presidential Dollar series history.