Madison Dollar

The U.S. Mint is rolling out its fourth new presidential coin on Thursday, this one bearing the likeness of James Madison, the father of the Constitution.

While there are a lot of doubters, Mint Director Ed Moy says he is hopeful that the latest attempt to introduce a dollar coin will be more successful than previous efforts. The past two dollar coins - the Susan B. Anthony, introduced in 1979, and the Sacagawea, introduced in 2000, were spectacular flops.

The new presidential coins, in an effort to tap into the huge success of the 50-state quarter program, feature a changing design with a new president introduced every three months in the order they served in office. The hope is that the changing designs will keep interest high and avoid the sharp drop-off in demand seen with other coins after their initial introduction.

Moy said there were some encouraging signs. The number of dollar coins ordered in the first eight months of the program totals 810 million, well ahead of demand for the previous two coins. But Moy concedes that much of the demand is coming from collectors. He said there are continuing problems in persuading the public and retailers to put the coins into circulation.

"These coins have been much more successful than critics said they would be, but they are not as successful as they can be," Moy said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

One worry is that demand has been falling steadily. After an initial order of 300 million George Washington coins, introduced last February, orders for the John Adams coin fell to 200 million, with the Thomas Jefferson coin falling to 170 million. The Mint will be producing 140 million Madison coins, less than half the size of the Washington production.

Moy said the Mint's unofficial goal is to stabilize production around 500 million coins per year. "We are shooting for that as the floor and we hope to do better," he said.

To hit that level, Moy has appointed an agency task force aimed at dealing with problems that have arisen such as customers being disappointed that they are cannot get the coins from their local bank.

Moy said banks don't realize that if they run out, they can order more coins from the Federal Reserve. The Fed has the job of distributing U.S. coins and currency to commercial banks.

"Right now, your chances of getting the new dollar coin at your bank are fair," Moy said. "I will consider it a victory when you have a great chance of getting the coin."

Another issue the Mint is working on is getting coin-intensive industries, such as vending machines, laundromats, car washes and fast food restaurants, to start using the dollar coin in more transactions.

The Mint has scored some initial victories in this regard including a decision by transit officials in several major cities including New York to dispense the coins as change when commuters pay for their rides.

While getting the coins into more widespread use has proven a problem, the Mint has had more success in dealing with production issues that stemmed from use of edge lettering of U.S. coins for the first time since 1933.

"In God We Trust" and the Latin phrase "E Pluribus Unum" are stamped on the edge of the coins, but initially some coins were produced with either the phrases missing or stamped very faintly.

Moy said those errors have been steadily declining from approximately 50,000 Washington coins found with weak or no edge lettering to 5,000 of the Adams coins and just 200 Jefferson coins. New machinery scheduled to go on line this winter will "significantly reduce any chance for errors," Moy said.

Mint officials also are hoping the dollar coin will get a boost from the end of the 50-state quarter program, which will wrap up with the final five states next year.

"We had record numbers of people collecting the State Quarters and our hope is that interest will transfer over to the Presidential dollar series," Moy said.