Presidential Dollars (2007–2016; 2020)

Congress Modeled the Program on the 50 State Quarters

Congress authorized the Presidential $1 Coin Program through Pub. L. 109-145, enacted December 22, 2005. The legislation's sponsors pointed directly to the 50 State Quarters program as justification: rotating designs had driven the public to collect quarters, and the same mechanism applied to the dollar might finally achieve what the Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony, and Sacagawea dollars had not. Four new obverse designs per year, each featuring a deceased president in order of service, with a president required to have been deceased for at least two years before appearing on a coin. The program was intended to run until every eligible president had been honored. The first coin, depicting George Washington, became available on February 15, 2007. The series continued through 2016 at Ronald Reagan, the last president then eligible under the two-year rule, with Jimmy Carter still living. A final coin honoring George H.W. Bush, who died in 2018, was issued December 4, 2020.¹

The reverse design, by Mint sculptor-engraver Don Everhart, depicts the Statue of Liberty from a low, close angle, with the elbow of her raised torch arm at the coin's center. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA runs around the border, outside a thin inner circle that frames the statue; the denomination $1 appears beneath the raised torch arm. LIBERTY does not appear on the obverse of any Presidential dollar, the decision having been made that the Statue of Liberty on the reverse conveyed the concept adequately. The obverse of each coin carries the president's name above the portrait and the ordinal number and years of service below. Each portrait was designed either by a Mint sculptor-engraver or by an Artistic Infusion Program artist and then sculpted by Mint staff, producing some variation in style and relief across the series while maintaining a common layout.²

Edge Lettering Made This the First Circulating Coin Since 1933 to Carry Inscriptions on the Edge

The Presidential dollar's edge carries the date, mintmark, and E PLURIBUS UNUM, incused on circulation strikes by a separate Schuler edge-lettering machine after the obverse and reverse are struck; from 2009, thirteen stars replaced the single dots that had separated the inscriptions. From 2007 through 2008, IN GOD WE TRUST also appeared on the edge, making it the only place on those coins where the national motto was found. The edge-lettering process was the first of its kind on a circulating coin since the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle last struck in 1933, and the use of a separate production step introduced a new failure mode into the manufacturing sequence. In early 2007, before the end of February, coins were being reported that had passed through the striking process without receiving any edge lettering. One published estimate puts the Washington dollars released without edge inscriptions at about 250,000, with a large share reportedly released around Jacksonville, Florida. Because IN GOD WE TRUST was absent from both the coin's face and its (missing) edge, the press quickly labeled them "godless dollars." The designation stuck, though PCGS formally catalogued them as Missing Edge Lettering coins, which is the accurate description of the error.³

The public reaction to the "godless dollar" was considerably more intense than the error warranted. Email chains circulated claiming the Mint had deliberately removed the national motto; calls for boycotts followed. Congress passed H.R. 2764 in December 2007 requiring that IN GOD WE TRUST be moved from the edge to the obverse or reverse of all Presidential dollars beginning in 2009. The change took effect with the William Henry Harrison dollar, the first 2009 issue. From 2009 onward, the edge carried only the date, mintmark, thirteen stars, and E PLURIBUS UNUM. The controversy inadvertently produced two distinct edge configurations that now separate the series into a pre-2009 and post-2009 collecting context, with the 2007 and 2008 coins also being the only issues from which a genuine godless error can be struck.⁴

About 1.4 Billion Surplus Dollar Coins Had Piled Up Before Circulation Production Was Suspended

The anticipated State Quarter effect did not materialize for the dollar. Mintages during the first year of the program approached $1 billion worth of coins, and production continued at scale through 2011 despite clear evidence that the coins were accumulating in Federal Reserve vaults rather than circulating. By the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suspended production for circulation on December 13, 2011, the Federal Reserve held about 1.4 billion surplus dollar coins of all types, most of them added after the Presidential program began. The program continued but shifted entirely to collector sales from 2012 through 2016; those NIFC (Not Issued for Circulation) issues were produced in quantities tied to collector orders, typically between about 4.48 and 7.84 million at Philadelphia and 3.36 and 5.88 million at Denver for each president, and were sold directly by the Mint in rolls, bags, and sets. The gap between the hundreds of millions struck annually in 2007 and 2008 and these collector-order runs splits the series in two: the circulation dates went out through the Federal Reserve, and the later ones were sold only by the Mint.⁵

Building the Set

A type set requires one coin. A complete series set by date and mintmark, including Philadelphia and Denver business strikes for each president and San Francisco Proofs, is achievable but large. The circulation-era coins (2007–2011) from both Philadelphia and Denver are common in all grades and trade at or near face value in circulated condition; high-grade uncirculated examples command only modest premiums. The NIFC-era coins (2012-2016 and 2020) carry higher per-coin premiums in any grade, because they were struck only for sale to collectors and were never distributed through banks into pocket change. For the 2007 and 2008 dates, the Missing Edge Lettering errors are the series' primary collector targets: these are genuine production errors, present in all four 2007 presidents and some 2008 dates, and are distinguishable from counterfeits (coins with the edge lettering filed off) by the presence of the collar die's characteristic marks on a genuine error edge. No Presidential dollar date is rare; collectors build the set for its run of presidents and its edge varieties, not for condition rarities or low mintages. The primary specialist reference is Bowers, Q. David, A Guide Book of Modern United States Dollar Coins (Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2016).⁶