Susan B. Anthony Dollars
By 1977 a Treasury-sponsored study had documented that the Eisenhower dollar was too large and heavy for everyday commerce and recommended a smaller dollar. Congress authorized a new small-diameter…
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Capped Bust Dimes
When Mint Director Robert Patterson finally hired John Reich in April 1807, he was bringing in a talent the institution had missed for years. Reich, born in Fuerth, Bavaria, had arrived in America…
Indian Head Cents
James B. Longacre made his case to Mint Director James Ross Snowden in a letter dated August 21, 1858: the feathered headdress was as characteristic of the Western Hemisphere as the turban was of the…
Lincoln Bicentennial Cents
The year 2009 was, in numismatic terms, genuinely unusual. February 12 marked the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. August 2 marked the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln cent. No other…
Washington Quarters (America the Beautiful)
The America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-456, signed December 23, 2008) authorized a 56-coin quarter program running from 2010 through 2021, honoring one…
Walking Liberty Half Dollars
Adolph Weinman came to the Walking Liberty half dollar with a specific formation. He had studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens around 1896, and Saint-Gaudens' influence runs visibly through the…
Flowing Hair Dollars
The Coinage Act of 1792 authorized a national mint and defined the dollar as the monetary standard of the new republic. Engraver Robert Scot, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in November 1793…
Twenty Cent Pieces
Nevada Senator John Percival Jones introduced the twenty-cent piece to Congress in 1874 on practical grounds: the Coinage Act of 1873 had abolished the silver trime, the half dime, and the standard…
Eisenhower Dollars
Dollar coin production had been suspended since 1935. It resumed in 1971 because two events in 1969 converged in Congress: the death of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on March 28, 1969, which…
Seated Liberty Dimes
The Seated Liberty dime that appeared in 1837 carried a design that had been in development since at least 1835, when Mint Director Robert M. Patterson began pushing for a neoclassical replacement…
Liberty Head Gold $10 Eagles (Coronet)
When Christian Gobrecht completed the Liberty Head design for the eagle in 1838, the denomination had been absent from production since Thomas Jefferson's 1804 halt. The new coin was smaller and…
Lincoln Shield Cents
The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, which mandated the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial cent program, also required that beginning in 2010 the cent's reverse bear an image emblematic of Lincoln's…