2008 Sacagawea Dollar

My coin dealer thinks that 2008 will be a year without the Sacagawea.

Well, I had read that the Sac was to be "re-designed" with an "achievement" of Native Americans on the reverse of each coin....once a year starting in 2009. The technicality of that bill, my hunch is that will be resolved....there is a lot of time in the year 2008 left to produce these for this year and they were probably prepared already to mint them, if they hadn't already minted some, since they were "on sale" or close to being available for purchase for this year of 08.
"Only for collectors" and "not in circulation" is the difference between the Sacajewea coin and the Presidential dollar coins that "are" for circulation (well.....supposedly ha ha) and available everywhere. You CAN'T go to your bank and get a roll of Sacajewea's minted in 2008, or 07, or 06, or 05........etc. I could be wrong, but I think they "haven't" been "circulating" coins since 2002. You can still buy as many Sac's as you want from MY bank.....but NONE with the newer years are ever available for that reason......they're all beat up circulated "old" Sac's....(first two years) and for me....worthless really. I'll get the new rolls if/when available though, cause they don't mint many of them compared to other coins (including Pres. dollars which are in the BILLIONS minted) and they're NOT minted for circulation......just for collectors.....that's enough for me to get a roll or two ! (like the new Kennedys too I suppose) Nobody uses the .50 piece either and they still make those in limited numbers for collectors only, just like the Sacajewea. As to the value or the usefulness of the coin, well sure, the debate is valid......but ..... there are all kinds of tastes and interests in coin collecting....... "IT WELCOMES A BIG TENT" as they say.....to each his own.

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Now I have a BOLD and INNOVATIVE new plan. What do you think? I propose that the US Mint to stop producing the $1 note and circulate those dollar coins in the vaults for let's say 5 years.

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nds76, Great news! The Mint has agreed to your proposal and from this day forth will not print any one dollar bills! Of course that is pretty easy for them to do since they have never printed one dollar bills and have no control over whether any dollar bills get printed or not. But they say that THEY will not print any. Now we just have to get the Federal Reserve to stop ordering any from the BEP.

And I see nothing in PL 110-82 that alters the previous authorization for the Sac dollar or changing the 2:1 ratio of Sac dollars to President dollars for 2008. The legislation clearly states that its provisions do not go into effect until Jan 1 2009 (after which the ratio drops to 4:1). In fact as I read it, it actually mandates that they be struck. I take that back. After I actually make the changes to the law to see how it now reads I can see that it does remove the authorization for the Sac dollar. (In fact it could be seen as technically making the 2007 Sacs illegal since it removed their authorization to continue along with the President dollars. It is very dificult to tell exactly what the law is when you seldom see the whole thing, just bits and pieces and clauses that modify other clause that aren't seen so you can't really tell what is really being changed. When you are able to find a copy of the law it is almost invariably an old version and you have no clue what changes have been made to it since then. You have to know what laws have modified it since then, find them and then reconstruct the actual current law from all of the bits and pieces.)

Section 3 Technical and Conforming Amendments

Sec5112(n)(1) of Title 31 United States Code is amended -
(1)by by striking the paragraph designation and heading and all that follows through "Notwithstanding subsection (d)" and inserting the following
(1)REDESIGN BEGINNING IN 2007 - notwithstanding subsection (d)
(2) By striking subparagraph (B): and
(3) by redesignating clauses (i) and (ii) as subparagraphs(A) and (B) respectively and indenting the subparagraphs appropriately.

(subsection (d) that is refered to is that section that requires IGWT to appear on the obverse of all US coins. By saying "subsection (d)notwithstanding" it removes that requirement from applying to the new Sac dollars.)

This makes the old section that read like this

`(n) Redesign and Issuance of Circulating $1 Coins Honoring Each of the Presidents of the United States-

`(1) REDESIGN BEGINNING IN 2007-

`(A) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding subsection (d) and in accordance with the provisions of this subsection, $1 coins issued during the period beginning January 1, 2007, and ending upon the termination of the program under paragraph (8), shall--

`(i) have designs on the obverse selected in accordance with paragraph (2)(B) which are emblematic of the Presidents of the United States; and

`(ii) have a design on the reverse selected in accordance with paragraph (2)(A).

`(B) CONTINUITY PROVISIONS-

`(i) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall continue to mint and issue $1 coins which bear any design in effect before the issuance of coins as required under this subsection (including the so-called `Sacagawea-design' $1 coins).

`(ii) CIRCULATION QUANTITY- Beginning January 1, 2007, and ending upon the termination of the program under paragraph (8), the Secretary annually shall mint and issue such `Sacagawea-design' $1 coins for circulation in quantities of no less than 1/3 of the total $1 coins minted and issued under this subsection.'.

Now read like this

`(1) REDESIGN BEGINNING IN 2007 - notwithstanding subsection (d)
and in accordance with the provisions of this subsection, $1 coins issued during the period beginning January 1, 2007, and ending upon the termination of the program under paragraph (8), shall--

`(A) have designs on the obverse selected in accordance with paragraph (2)(B) which are emblematic of the Presidents of the United States; and

`(B) have a design on the reverse selected in accordance with paragraph (2)(A).

I think its sad that the mint probably has a legal department who have the job of trying to figure out what mandates congress has given them.

For some reason the mint does not have the 2007 production figures on their website. In the Presidential dollar coin act it said that 1/3 of the dollar coins minted were to be Sacagaweas. As of May of 2007 they had produced 621 million Presidential dollars and 7 million Sacagaweas. Regardless of circulation or not, they did not produce the number that they were required by law to produce. In all of 2007 they produced 940 million pres dollars. While I can't say for sure, I don't think they produced 470 million Sacs. in the last half of the year.

They only minted 1/2 of the number of Madison coins as they did Washington coins.

Your tax dollars hard at work!

"For some reason the mint does not have the 2007 production figures on their website..."

Actually, they do. If you go to the following page...

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_min...07#starthere

...you'll find the Mint reports striking a total of 9.48 million Sacagawea dollars vs. 943.11 million Presidential dollars. That's from January 2007 through December 2007.

Hope this helps...

eaglefoot, I hope they don't do that. The reverse of the Sac. is awesome, they might as well not mint them at all if they're going to mess it up. I do want the dollar coins in though. I've been buying boxes just to spend and get them into circulation.

Well all this speculation is informative and entertaining, but I guess according to coinnews.net the updated version of the law was signed on the last day of Feb. by George W. so as soon as the mint sees fit (being a government agency it could be a while!) they will be issuing the sacs for 2008!!