Guy From US Mint Claimed No More Stockpile Of Halves, But

It does not matter. Congress could pass legislation tomorrow to authorize or change any US coin, whether circulating, NIFC, or commemorative.

Even if they wanted to call it a commemorative, I doubt it would matter to the collector as long as it follows the design used in rest of the series (same reverse and legends).

I think the ATB designs would look 10 times better on a half dollar sized planchet.

That is a common misconception but it is incorrect. Alabama's sitting Governor, Thomas Kilby, was featured on the 1921 Alabama Centennial Half Dollar, President Calvin Coolidge was featured on the 1926 US Sesquicentennial Half Dollar, Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson was featured on the 1936 Arkansas-Robinson Centennial Half Dollar, and Virginia Senator Carter Glass was featured on the 1936 Lynchburg Sesquicentennial Half Dollar. In modern times, the 1995 Special Olympics Commemorative Dollar featured Eunice Kennedy Shriver and despite denials by the US Mint, the 1992 Olympic Baseball Commemorative Dollar featured Nolan Ryan in a pose identical to his 1991 Fleer baseball card.

With that said, I do not think any of those individuals being featured on a commemorative coin would be nearly as controversial as putting Jimma Carter's still-living mug on a Presidential dollar. Of course, both Carter and Bush 41 will be 89 this year so it is quite conceivable that they could die by 2017.

True. It seems their modus operandi is continual inaction.

I will change my statement from would to should. Congress should act to remove ambiguity to allow for a Reagan dollar.

For this to pass, the left will want something in return, explaining my vision of a Carter-Reagan compromise. Yes, it would set a dangerous precedent, but since when does Congress consider long term consequences?

Honestly, that Carter-Reagan compromise is about the only solution I see that makes good sense to do. Seriously, regardless of how little I like Reagan, dude's dead, so I have no problem giving him his coin when his turn comes up in the program (besides, it might get some people to shut up about putting him on the dime or half dollar, which would make me happy).

However, I hate the idea of the program getting there and having this gap. We go Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan (35, 36, 37, 38, 40) and that's just going to look bad. There's no way to make this program look good in the end and include all our dead presidents without including Carter, dead or alive. Looks shoddy to have that space there, and thirty, forty, a hundred years from now you'll have younger collectors wondering why there's this number - didn't they know how to count back then, did they just forget Carter was president (okay, sometimes this might actually be true)? And we'll be stuck having to explain over and over again that there was a weird thing with the law.

They should seriously just make a change to the law calling it the "First Forty Presidential dollar Series", stick Carter in there before Reagan, end the program with Reagan. When we're around president 54 or so, we can order in a "41st-50th Presidential dollar series" over, say, five years (2 a year) to keep things relatively current. Do that every ten presidents or so and you might get something nifty going. And it minimizes the amount of people who slip by and wind up still alive on Presidential dollars.

That's how I would do it, though.

Yeah, I say get rid of the presidents on coins too. But I'm not too opposed to a single program giving each president a coin, especially if we could limit the presidents to that one program. Boom, commemorative presidents on dollars series and we can go back to having nice art on our circulating coins.

In hindsight, it would have been better had the original legislation explicitly stated that Nixon would be the last. Additional legislation would be required for any of the presidents who were still living when the act passed in 2005 (Ford died the following year).