1792 - 2017 High Relief Gold And Silver Medal

Not a fan of the design, so certainly wouldn't pay up for the gold version. If the silver one is released at a reasonable price I might go for it so long as the flippers and profiteers don't get to it first.

No new legislation for the gold 2015 American Liberty coin was necessary as the Secretary of the Treasury was given authorization to produce gold coins such as the American Liberty series via approved updates to Title 31, Chapter 51 of the US Code; the updates took effect back in 2011.

The same legislation would allow the Mint to strike a different silver $1.00 bullion coin than the current Silver Eagle, but the Treasury Department / Mint is not looking to create an internal competitor to its very successful Silver Eagle program. The Mint, however, does have standing authority to strike national medals (in silver and/or other metals). It made the decision early on, likely based on recommendations for a series of "Liberty medals" made by the Citizens Coin Advisory Committee in 2014, to strike a medal using the same designs as on the gold coin (minus the required coin inscriptions / mottoes).

Debrajc - wow, nice pics. For the medal, I personally prefer the look of the business strike to the proof, I didn't try to buy the silver in part due to this medal being struck in proof only. Hoping for a business strike Liberty medal in 2017.

condor101 & commems -
I see your point, but 31 U.S. Code § 5112 (e) seems pretty open in that other designs could be minted, even multiple designs:

I'm not convinced that minting a new year-to-year Liberty silver coin would create any so called "internal competitor to its very successful Silver Eagle program". By this logic, one could argue that the Liberty gold coins would be internal competitors to the American Gold Eagle program.

I'm honestly disappointment that aside from the gold, this design (and the new modern Liberty series) is being offered as a silver medal (and not a silver coin). Medals do not show up in the annual Red Book (as far as I've seen), and my impression is that they are not considered on par with coins in the numismatic community. That is, they will necessarily be relegated to a peripheral realm of niche medal collecting, which I think is odd and unfortunate. So the wealthy among us who can afford these 1 oz gold coins every year will be buying something that is considered within the cannon of coin collecting, while those of a more modest budget who buy the silver medal will be buying something that is NOT considered within that same cannon.

Thoughts on this type of consideration?

Also, the relatively large percent of open fields on the medal just looks odd. For me, there is just an irritating inconsistency with the great cultural heritage in American numismatics without E Pluribus Unum.

I do believe the Liberty medal meets all the requirements of 31 U.S. Code § 5112 (e), except the US Mint chose to skip four out of the seven required inscriptions from part (4), and thereby made it a medal.

It is completely unclear why this occurred. I see nothing about commems comment about internal competition with the ASE that makes sense from a dollar-and-cents perspective. In other words, anyone could have purchased an ASE in 2016 AND/OR a Liberty silver bullion coin. This part (e) of the law does not say only one design can be offered in a given year. More options are not "competition".

Am I missing something here, because you are right, this is very cut and dry?