Susan B. Anthony Dollars (1979–1999)

The Design Gasparro Preferred Was Rejected Before the First Coin Was Struck

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 dollar coin by the Act of October 10, 1978. Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro prepared an allegorical Liberty head for the obverse, a design with the flowing-hair character of early coin traditions, and it was well regarded within the Mint. The Commission of Fine Arts rejected it. Organizations and members of Congress pushed instead for the coin to depict a real woman, and Susan B. Anthony, the women's suffrage leader who died in 1906, was selected. Gasparro based the portrait on six surviving photographs of Anthony, ultimately depicting her at approximately 50 years of age in a high-necked blouse with her hair pulled back. The Commission of Fine Arts found his initial sketches too sympathetic and insisted on a more austere treatment. The resulting portrait is of a recognizable historical person rather than an idealized symbol, and it was the first circulating coin of the republic to depict a named historical woman.¹

The reverse was adapted directly from Gasparro's Eisenhower dollar: the same Apollo 11 mission patch imagery of an eagle descending toward the lunar surface with an olive branch, Earth visible above, E PLURIBUS UNUM at top center, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA arcing above, ONE DOLLAR below. The obverse carries LIBERTY at the top, the date at the bottom, IN GOD WE TRUST to the right of the portrait, thirteen stars to either side of Anthony's head, and the P, D, or S mintmark to the left of the portrait's neck. The coin is 26.5 millimeters in diameter, just 2.2 millimeters larger than the Washington quarter. It is the same copper-nickel clad composition, the same silvery color, and has the same reeded edge.²

The Quarter Problem Was Identified Before Production and Ignored

The near-identity in size, color, and edge between the new dollar and the quarter was not a surprise discovered after the coin entered commerce. It was flagged before production began. The eleven-sided inner border visible on the coin's face was intended to address the problem, providing a tactile distinction that cashiers and vending machines could theoretically detect, but the outer edge remained round and reeded like the quarter. In everyday transactions the coins were routinely confused. Cashiers received them as quarters or gave them as quarters in change. The public associated the coin with the difficulties of the Carter administration, which added political weight to the practical objections, and within months of the July 1979 release it was clear the experiment had failed. The parallel to the twenty-cent piece of the 1870s, which was also too close in size to the quarter and was withdrawn after two years, was noted at the time by specialists who recognized the same mistake being repeated a century later.³

Production continued in 1979 and 1980 at substantial mintages across Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco. By 1980, Philadelphia's mintage had fallen from 360 million coins to 27 million. The 1981 coins, at all three mints, were struck only for inclusion in collector Mint Sets and Proof Sets rather than for circulation, a formal acknowledgment that the coin was not going to circulate. At the close of initial production the Treasury held a surplus of approximately 520 million unsold coins in Federal Reserve vaults, a quantity that would take nearly two decades to deplete through the narrow channels where the coin actually found use.⁴

The Wide Rim Variety and the Mintmark Types Are the Collecting Focus of the Series

The 1979-P Wide Rim is the key business strike variety of the series. Late in 1979 the Mint revised the obverse hub to widen the rim, bringing the date noticeably closer to the coin's edge; because all subsequent business strikes used the Wide Rim design, the Wide Rim coins from 1979 are a distinct minority of that year's Philadelphia production. The variety is identifiable at a glance by the compressed gap between the date and the rim. In circulated and lower Uncirculated grades it commands a modest premium; in Gem (Mint State 65 or finer) and above the premium becomes substantial, as few Wide Rim examples were saved in high condition from the brief window in which they were struck.⁵

The San Francisco Proof issues yield the series' most significant mintmark varieties. The 1979-S Proof was struck with two different mintmark punches: the Type 1, struck from July through October 1979, has a filled, indistinct S that reads more as a blob than a letter; the Type 2, struck from November through December, carries a sharply defined, clear S. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the 1979-S Proofs are Type 1. The same distinction applies to 1981-S Proofs, where the Type 2 is substantially scarcer than the Type 1, representing the series' most sought-after Proof variety. For any collector assembling a comprehensive SBA set by variety the 1981-S Type 2 is the one that requires the most patience.⁶

The 1999 Revival Was Driven by Transit Systems, Not by Public Demand

The 520 million surplus coins that left the Treasury in 1981 did not sit idle. Post offices used the Anthony dollar in stamp vending machines, and metropolitan transit systems in several cities adopted the coin for fare payment, using up the stockpile at a rate that depleted it by the late 1990s. When the Treasury recognized that supply was falling short of the vending and transit demand that had actually materialized for the coin, and when Congress simultaneously authorized a new gold-colored Sacagawea dollar for 2000 production that could not be ready in time, the Anthony dollar was struck again as a stopgap. In total, 41,368,000 coins dated 1999 were produced for circulation: 29,592,000 at Philadelphia and 11,776,000 at Denver. The Philadelphia Mint also struck Proof versions for individual sale to collectors. No 1999-S coins were produced. The Anthony design was retired in 2000 when Sacagawea dollar production began, and the series ended without public ceremony or collector campaign.⁷

Building the Set

A type set requires one coin. A complete variety set of all major business strike and Proof issues runs to approximately 18 entries: the 1979-P in Narrow and Wide Rim; the 1979-D, 1979-S Type 1 and Type 2, 1980-P, 1980-D, 1980-S, 1981-P, 1981-D, 1981-S Type 1 and Type 2, 1999-P, 1999-D, and 1999-P Proof. The 1979-P Wide Rim, 1979-S Type 2, and 1981-S Type 2 are the entries that require purposeful search rather than casual acquisition. The 1981 business strikes at Philadelphia and Denver are NIFC issues available in Mint Sets and worth a moderate premium in high grades. Common dates in circulated condition are worth face value; most Proofs and uncirculated examples trade in the low double figures. The primary specialist reference is Bowers, Q. David, A Guide Book of Modern United States Dollar Coins (Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2016).⁸