Innovation Dollar Hubble

This might be the best reverse of the set so far. It looks good in the business strike and proof strike. In the reverse proof strike it is outstanding. And I love the obverse. Lady Liberty stands out. The view of her raised arm with the torch is unencumbered by distractions. Simple yet refined.

It was felt that too many inscriptions cluttered up the coin and that by moving them to the edge it would allow a "larger canvas" for the designers artwork.

They moved stuff front/back for the quarters, no reason they could do the same for the dollars. The edge lettering here is unnecessary.

They would end up being stored at taxpayer expense like the rest of them.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/1373...nobody-wants

Although this article is ~10 years old now, I cannot find any news about the coins still being in storage or recycled or ? I wonder what happened to them.

I do like the Hubble design, but as has been mentioned, the other side is overly non-filled with design.



My thoughts also. They never seem to learn what collectors like and dislike anymore.

There tends to be a fairly steady draw down of around 6 million coins a month for use in cities with major public transit such as subways etc. So in the 9 years since that article they have probably managed to dispose of about 600 million or so of them.

As a comparison, back whe the Sac dollar came out Wal-mart managed to dispense 100 million in one month. The Treasury Dept considers the Wal-mart promotion a failure.

I'm not a fan of the font used for the U.S of A and the state.

I get it they were trying to pull off the open As of the retro connecting NASA logo, but as a whole if this continues the series is gonna be a hot mess as a whole with them getting "creative" with reverse lettering to make them "different" ...

I really like the reverse design of the Hubble dollar, and the obverse has grown on me over the years. Too often designers are afraid of negative space and the end result is cluttered (e.g. the 2021 Crossing the Delaware quarter reverse), so I like that the Mint took a chance with the obverse of the Innovation dollars.

That being said, the obverse still has the appearance of a token, and I've always despised edge lettering.

I like the design of the American Innovation for both sides. The open spaces on the Statue of Liberty side offer a challenge to the collector of business strikes to find those with little or no bag marks and scratches on the open fields. For that reason, most of the business strike (only available through the US Mint or if found in circulation, likely low grade MS ones put into circulation by collectors)range between MS 62 - 66, I see very few grade above MS66.

Also I am quite happy they do NOT put them into circulation as here in the NYC area you can easily get some nice high AU Presidential dollars from vending machines and even the bank. YOu also get tons of 2000 and 2001 Sacs as well as 2009 and 2010 Native Americans. You can even spot (albeit rarely) current Native American dollars. So plenty of small dollar coins to use. As one of the posters repeatedly said, we have to drop the paper dollar for dollar coins to be used. One thing though, I do encourgae colelctors of AI dollars to put some into circulation to have people enjoy themand to lessen the population of Mint State coins.