Commemorative Reverses For Sacagawea $1

Bill seeks commemorative reverses for Sacagawea $1
Coin design would change every year

By - Coin World

A portion or all of new Sacagawea dollar coins could be getting a new look on the reverse every year of the U.S. Presidential Coin Program if legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate is approved.
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D, introduced the Native American $1 Coin Act or S. 585 on Feb. 14. Other sponsors are Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Similar legislation is expected to be introduced in the House of Representatives within a month, Dorgan said.
The bill proposes a new reverse design on not less than 20 percent of the total Sacagawea dollar coins minted and issued every year during the Presidential dollar coin program. The legislation does not appear to mandate production of the old reverse design each year, so it is possible that all of the coins could have the commemorative reverses.
The new Presidential coin program's legislation stipulates that one-third of the total dollar coins minted every year will be the Sacagawea design.
The legislation also proposes changing the current Sacagawea spelling in previous legislation to Sakakawea, the spelling preferred by some American Indians. The measure would also move some obverse and reverse inscriptions to the edge as on the Presidential dollars.
"The Sakakawea coin has not been marketed very successfully and inventory has built up," Dorgan said. He believes the legislation for new designs will create an interest in the coin.
The Sacagawea dollar features a portrait of a young Indian woman and child representing the Shoshone guide of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and her son; no known contemporary portrait exists of Sacagawea (or Sakakawea). The model for the coin was Randy'L He-dow Teton, a Bannock Shoshone who was a 23-year-old college student when she modeled for the coin's designer before the coin's release in late 1999 and early 2000.
The Sacagawea dollar is the first U.S. coin to be struck in a composition of 77 percent copper, 12 percent zinc, 7 percent manganese, 4 percent nickel alloy bonded to a copper core.
The U.S. Mint has produced 1.4 billion Sacagawea coins since 2000 and stopped production of circulating examples in 2002. The current inventory is 110 million pieces.
The Native American $1 Coin Act proposes a redesign beginning Jan. 1, 2009. The "so-called Sakakawea" would continue to appear on the coin's obverse and a new reverse design would represent one important American Indian or American Indian contribution.
Dorgan said his intent in presenting the legislation is multifold - to honor Sakakawea and not build the inventory, and to honor other great American Indian leaders. He believes placing a new and unique design on the reverse will create a collector series. He adds that he does not believe the legislation will be controversial.
Suggested reverse designs, listed in the bill, include the creation of Cherokee written language; the Iroquois Confederacy; Wampanoag Chief Massasoit; the Pueblo Revolt; Olympian Jim Thorpe; Ely S. Parker, a general on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant and later head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and code talkers who served the United States Armed Forces during World War I and World War II. The reverse design, however, would not depict an individual in such a size that the coin could be considered a two-headed coin.
The coin's reverse designs would be chosen by the Treasury secretary after consultation with the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, the Congressional Native American Caucus of the House of Representatives, the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Congress of American Indians, and their review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
The coin's obverse design would be chosen by the secretary of the Treasury after consultation with the Commission of Fine Arts and its review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. It would contain the so-called "Sakakawea design" and the inscription "Liberty."
Modifications to the current obverse design would result from moving the other obverse inscriptions to the edge.
The coin's distinctive smooth rather than reeded edge would be preserved so that the denomination of the coin would be readily discernible, states the bill's language. However, the edge would be modified with edge inscriptions.
The edge would include an inscription of the year of minting and the motto "In God We Trust" from the obverse and the motto "E Pluribus Unum" from the reverse.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. CW