PCGS The Standart for the Rare Coin Industry

The curtain will go down officially next year on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. But the unloved, unattractive coin (whose approval rating approximates Linda Tripp's) may get to appear on center stage one final time this year. That possibility seems to have increased with new word from the United States Mint that the stockpile of "Susies" at the Federal Reserve had fallen to just 47.4 million by the end of February. The coins are now leaving the Fed at the rate of 55 million a year, according to James Benfield of the Coin Coalition, a lobbying group that pressed for a new dollar coin -- and at that rate, the supply will be totally exhausted before the end of this year.

The new dollar coin authorized by Congress is scheduled for release in January 2000, presumably with a design depicting Sacajawea (or Sacagawea, as the name is often spelled), the Shoshone Indian maiden who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Northwest. But if supplies of Anthony dollars run out before the end of this year, the Mint may bridge the gap by cranking out one final batch of Susies.

The Anthony dollar made its debut in 1979, but immediate public rejection led the Mint to pull it from production after just three years. In fact, it was minted for general circulation in only two of those years -- 1979 and 1980. In 1981, the Mint made only enough for Proof sets and uncirculated coin sets (better known as "mint sets"). For more than a decade thereafter, hundreds of millions of Anthony dollars clogged the government's vaults. In recent years, however, that stockpile has been shrinking because of increased use of the coins by tunnel and toll-road authorities and, most importantly, the U.S. Postal Service, which accepts the mini-dollar in its stamp-vending machines.