2013-D William McKinley, NIFC

Denver struck 3,365,100 William McKinley dollars in 2013, the first design of the year and the opening Denver issue of the second Not Intended For Circulation program year. The Mint launched the McKinley dollar on February 19, 2013, with a ceremony at the McKinley Presidential Library in Canton, Ohio, the same town McKinley used for his 1896 front-porch campaign. Phebe Hemphill designed and sculpted the obverse portrait of the 25th president, paired with Don Everhart's Statue of Liberty reverse and the standard incused edge inscription. The 3.37 million Denver figure sits below the 4.20 million Denver Benjamin Harrison figure that closed 2012, continuing the steady year-over-year contraction the Mint adopted once Federal Reserve releases stopped in December 2011. McKinley's assassination in September 1901 brought Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, and Roosevelt's coin followed McKinley as the second 2013 issue.

Strike quality on the Denver McKinley runs strong because the lower 2013 output meant fresher dies; the high points of the hair, ear, and shirt collar hold sharp, and the reverse torch flame is cleaner than on the high-mintage 2007 through 2011 issues. Watch the alloy: manganese-brass tones aggressively to honey, olive, or rose within a year or two of striking, and bright lemon-yellow surfaces on a coin more than a decade old almost always indicate cleaning. Bag and roll handling marks remain the dominant grade limiter at MS66 and MS67; cheek and field marks transferred from adjacent coins inside Mint-wrapped rolls are the typical 70-versus-69 question. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company, both grade the date routinely.

The 2013-D McKinley sold to collectors only, packaged in 25-coin rolls, 250-coin boxes, and the annual Mint Set. Original Mint-wrapped rolls remain the efficient acquisition path for collectors building a year set or first-NIFC-year subset, and certified MS67 examples often cost less than searching multiple rolls for an upper-end coin. The combined 2013 McKinley total of roughly 8.13 million across both circulation mints is among the lower individual-design totals in the entire 40-coin Presidential Dollar series. For program-wide background on the December 2011 NIFC cutover, see the Presidential Dollar series history.