2015-P Lyndon B. Johnson, NIFC

Philadelphia struck 4,900,000 Lyndon B. Johnson dollars in 2015, the closing design of the program year and the August 18 release that completed the four-coin succession behind Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. The 4.9 million figure leads the Denver Johnson run by 1.4 million pieces and falls in the middle of the 2015 Philadelphia range, well under the Kennedy mintage that pulled the year's strongest collector demand. The P mintmark sits on the edge alongside the date, the denomination, and the inscriptions IN GOD WE TRUST and E PLURIBUS UNUM, applied as a third strike after the obverse and reverse press. Michael Gaudioso engraved the 36th president's portrait, and Don Everhart's Statue of Liberty appears on the reverse common to every Presidential Dollar business strike.

Strike characteristics on the 2015-P Johnson hold up well across the run, with tight quality control on a fourth-quarter design. First softening surfaces on the high points of the hair sweep, the upper lapel, and Liberty's torch arm on later die states. Edge-lettering inspection matters more on Presidential Dollars than on most modern issues because the third strike applies the date and mintmark independently; off-center, doubled, weak, or missing edge lettering surfaces in original 2015 rolls at low rates and commands meaningful premiums when slabbed by PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, or NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company. Bright lemon-yellow surfaces on a coin a decade past striking almost always indicate cleaning rather than original color, since manganese-brass tones to honey, olive, or rose within a year or two.

For collectors, the 2015-P Johnson is the easier of the two business-strike Johnson dollars to source in original Mint packaging. Population data shows broad MS66 and MS67 supply, and an inexpensive certified MS67 is the realistic registry-set choice. Pricing on Mint-wrapped 25-coin rolls runs only marginally over face value, and the strongest collecting argument for the date sits in series context as the closing design of the program's penultimate full year and the lead Philadelphia Johnson business strike. For the December 2011 NIFC cutover and the wider Mint-distribution shift, see the Presidential Dollar series history.