2009-S Presidential Years Proof

The 2009-S Presidential Years Proof cent completes the four-coin bicentennial proof set from the San Francisco Mint. Susan Gamble designed the reverse depicting the unfinished Capitol dome, sculpted by Joseph Menna. The proof finish brings dramatic depth to the image; the half-built dome rises from mirror-like fields with a three-dimensional quality that rewards close examination under magnification. Every rivet and girder of the iron framework stands out against the polished background.

The Presidential Years proof was the final bicentennial cent design struck at San Francisco. After 2009, the facility would return to producing a single proof cent design each year, beginning with the Shield reverse in 2010. The 2009 proof sets were popular with collectors, partly because the bicentennial program offered something genuinely different after fifty years of the Memorial reverse. Approximately 2.99 million proof sets were produced. Many collectors also assembled "raw" (ungraded) sets of all twenty 2009 cents, covering the four designs from Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco across both copper and zinc compositions where applicable, plus the four proofs.