Susie B’s Swan Song: The 1999 Susan B. Anthony Dollars

By Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez - December 28, 2020

Susan B. Anthony Dollar, 1999-P SBA$1, DCAM, PCGS PR70DCAM. Click image to enlarge.

When the United States Mint announced in 1999 that it would re-release the long-dormant Susan B. Anthony Dollar after a nearly 20-year hiatus, it stunned many in the numismatic hobby. The “Susie B.,” which proved to be a massive failure during its original 1979-1981 run, had gained traction on the transit and vending machine scene as an efficient way to pay for transactions. As prices increased during the mid-1980s and throughout the 1990s for subway fares, pricy snacks, and stamps, small change such as nickels and dimes became more cumbersome in paying for goods and services purchased by way of pushing silver-colored coinage through a change slot.

By the time the late ‘90s had rolled around, the large stockpiles of Susan B. Anthony Dollars that languished in federal vaults and bank safes since the early 1980s had dwindled to fewer than 50 million coins – a mere fraction of the half billion that the United States government had on hand 15 years earlier. The United States Mint was preparing to launch the Sacagawea Dollar in 2000, a golden-colored base-alloy coin featuring a visage of the young Shoshone woman who helped guide the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s. But, unfortunately, supplies of the Susan B. Anthony Dollar were being depleted faster by 1999 than could be replenished by the long-anticipated Sacagawea Dollar slated for release the following year.

On May 20, 1999, Director of the United States Mint Philip Diehl made the startling announcement that the Susan B. Anthony Dollar was on its way to unexpected encore. “Demand for dollar coins is growing as more mass-transit authorities and vending operations convert to using the dollar coin,” he said. “As a result, we're likely to exhaust current supplies of SBA dollars before the new dollar coin is available in January. We're committed to providing an uninterrupted supply of dollar coins through this transition.”

Ultimately, the United States Mint pumped out some 42 million Susan B. Anthony Dollars in 1999, including 29,592,000 from the Philadelphia Mint, 11,776,000 hailing from Denver, and a maximum of 750,000 proofs made in Philly; the 1999-P Proof Dollar production represents the lowest mintage figure for the series. While most of the 1999-P and 1999-D business-strike SBAs were made available for channels of commerce to supply the economy with any new dollar coins it needed, a number of the circulation strikes and the 1999-P proofs were offered to coin collectors through the United States Mint website and product catalog.

Susan B. Anthony Dollar, 1999-P SBA$1, PCGS MS68. Click image to enlarge.

Susan B. Anthony Dollar, 1999-D SBA$1, PCGS MS68. Click image to enlarge.

A special four-piece 1999 Susan B. Anthony Dollar Uncirculated Set was issued for $5.95 with two Mylar packages, one housing a 1999-P Dollar and Philadelphia Mint token and the other a 1999-D Dollar and Denver Mint token. For $8.95, one could purchase a 1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar in a handsome navy-blue plastic clamshell case; the proof was not included in that year’s regular Proof Set offerings. Bag quantities of 1999 Susan B. Anthony Dollars were also offered, including a 25-piece bag for $35.50 and 1,000-coin bag for $1,095.

The release of the Sacagawea Dollar in early 2000 put a permanent end to the Susan B. Anthony Dollar series, now noted by numismatists for its unusual though not unprecedented multi-year gap between issues. In fact, there are several “encore dollars” known throughout United States Mint history, including the 1804 Draped Bust Dollars (minted in the mid-1830s, three decades after the previous circulation-strike Draped Bust Dollars were made) and the 1921 Morgan Dollars, which followed a 15-year hiatus spanning from 1905 through 1920.

While the Susan B. Anthony Dollar already had a small but increasing number of numismatic followers before its 1999 reprisal, the last-minute additions to the series a generation after the previous issues brought new life to the beleaguered mini dollar. In the years that followed, the Susan B. Anthony Dollar had seen increased interest among collectors of all ages, and especially those who were young when the coin was originally minted during the late disco era and connoted nostalgia with the quirky series. PCGS has long recognized the growing collector enthusiasm for the Susan B. Anthony Dollar series and offers several Registry Sets catering to these modern dollar coins.

Regardless of whether one is collecting top-pop specimens for a PCGS Registry Set or working on a more modest collection of Susan B. Anthony Dollars, the 1999 issues offer something for everyone. The 1999-P business strikes are common up through MS66, where market values hover around $25 according to PCGS CoinFacts; in MS67 the coin becomes scarce and in the top grade of MS68 they are rare, with prices for these coins showing as $65 and $1,800, respectively. The 1999-D is similarly available in MS66 and MS67 at prices of $20 and $50, respectively; however, it’s a little more common in the top grade of MS68, for where it sells for $550 – expensive but decidedly less so than its Philadelphia-Mint circulating counterpart. Conversely, the 1999-P Proof Dollar is common in all grades up through PR69 with prices of around $28 at that point, while it’s only moderately scarcer in PR70, the latter pieces trading for around $90.