2008 James Monroe - Position B MS66

History

The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, Public Law 109-145, directed the Treasury to issue dollar coins with changing presidential designs beginning in 2007, and its Section 102 required that the date of issue along with E PLURIBUS UNUM and IN GOD WE TRUST be struck into the edge rather than onto either face. According to NGC, the lettered edge was intended to give the coins a distinctive feel as an aid to blind and visually impaired users, while clearing space on the obverse for a larger presidential portrait. James Monroe was the fifth president honored and the fifth design in the program, released for circulation on February 14, 2008. Coin World reports that the edge lettering step was integrated as the final stage of a closed production system beginning with the 2008 Monroe dollar, after which far fewer coins escaped with missing edge inscriptions, placing this design at the boundary between the error-heavy 2007 production and the cleaner years that followed.

Details

Joseph Menna designed the obverse portrait and Don Everhart the reverse. The Philadelphia Mint struck the issue, with the P mint mark appearing on the edge alongside the date and the two mottoes. On all circulating-quality Presidential dollars the edge inscriptions were imparted in a separate operation after the obverse and reverse were struck, and that second pass is the mechanical origin of every edge error in the series, weak lettering included. Because the orientation of a blank in the edge-lettering machine was not controlled or recorded, no mintage figures exist for Position A or Position B, and error coins of this kind were never tallied.

Features

The obverse carries JAMES MONROE above the portrait and 5TH PRESIDENT 1817-1825 arched below it. The reverse shows the Statue of Liberty with the $1 denomination below Liberty's raised arm and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA encircling the design. PCGS defines Position A as edge lettering that reads upside down when the portrait faces up and Position B as lettering that reads normally in that orientation, so a Position B coin is simply one that came out of the machine the second way. NGC notes that results on the edge depended on the settings of the edge-lettering machine, which could leave inscriptions fully impressed, partially impressed, or absent, and weak edge lettering examples of this date have been certified as high as MS-66 by PCGS.

Notable facts

• PCGS began recognizing the Position A and Position B distinction effective April 24, 2007, and later extended the attribution to Native American and American Innovation dollars.
• Edge inscriptions were common on the earliest United States coinage until they were abandoned in 1836, then revived in 1907 on the Saint-Gaudens double eagles and used through 1933.
• The Presidential dollar series was inaugurated on February 15, 2007 with the George Washington issue.
• NGC records Missing Edge Lettering errors for each of the first fifteen designs, Washington through Buchanan, with the 2007 Washington by far the most common and Monroe absent from the most-frequent group.
• Monroe dollars with completely missing edge lettering are catalogued as (2008) without a mint mark, since the mint mark itself appeared only on the edge.
• Congress revisited the edge inscriptions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, which amended 31 U.S.C. 5112.