Sacagawea Dollar

History

The United States $1 Coin Act of 1997, Public Law 105-124, was signed on December 1, 1997, after the Treasury's stock of Susan B. Anthony dollars ran low while demand for dollar coins was rising. The statute directed that the replacement be golden in color, carry a distinctive edge, and have tactile and visual features making the denomination readily discernible, and it specified that nothing in the Act was intended to eliminate the paper dollar. Mint officials, aware of how poorly the Anthony dollar had been received, treated appearance and public introduction as the central problems to solve. Twenty-three artists were invited to submit obverse designs of Sacagawea along with complementary eagle reverses on themes of peace and freedom; Native American representatives, historians, numismatists, educators and the public commented, the field was cut to seven, and the finalists went to the Commission of Fine Arts in December 1998. Glenna Goodacre's design was unveiled at the White House on May 4, 1999, and the coin entered production the following year with the Thomas D. Rogers Sr. soaring eagle reverse, which served through 2008 before the obverse carried on into the Native American dollar series.

Details

Glenna Goodacre, a sculptor from Santa Fe, New Mexico, designed the obverse, and Thomas D. Rogers Sr. of the Mint's engraving staff prepared the 2000 to 2008 reverse. The coin measures 26.50 mm across, weighs 8.10 grams and has a plain edge. Its manganese-brass composition is reported both as 77% copper, 12% zinc, 7% manganese and 4% nickel and as 88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese and 2% nickel, the latter figure accounting for the whole coin including its copper core. Circulation strikes came from Philadelphia and Denver, with proofs from San Francisco, and the mint mark sits below the date. Among the reported figures for the type are 70,939,500 for the 2001-D and 62,468,000 for the 2001-P, with San Francisco proofs at 4,047,904 in 2000 and 3,344,679 in 2005.

Features

Sacagawea appears in three-quarter profile carrying her infant son, Jean Baptiste, in a cradleboard on her back. She looks directly out at the holder rather than in the profile view usual on American coinage, and Goodacre gave her the large dark eyes attributed to her in Shoshone accounts. LIBERTY arcs above, IN GOD WE TRUST sits to the left, the date to the right with the mint mark below it, and the sculptor's stylized GG initials appear at the lower left on the gunnysack. The 2000 to 2008 reverse shows an eagle in flight ringed by 17 stars, one for each state in the Union at the time of the 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM and ONE DOLLAR. One special striking is recorded from the first year: the Mint owed Goodacre a $5,000 commission for the winning obverse and paid it in 5,000 2000-P dollars, delivered to her in Santa Fe by Mint Director Philip Diehl, and roughly five years later these were found to have been struck from specially produced dies on specially prepared planchets.

Notable facts

• Randy'L He-dow Teton served as Goodacre's model for the obverse portrait.
• Goodacre was already nationally known for the Vietnam Women's Memorial on the National Mall, and she died on April 13, 2020, at age 80.
• Goodacre reported that she revised the obverse six times at the request of Mint and Treasury officials.
• The 2025-W anniversary dollar is a half-ounce .9999 fine gold proof struck at West Point, released July 31, 2025, with a mintage capped at 7,500.
• Unusually for a modern American gold issue, the 2025-W piece omits weight and fineness inscriptions so that it matches the appearance of the original dollar, and it ships in a black clamshell case bearing a gold foil image of Sacagawea.
• The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee reviewed and recommended the anniversary designs on February 18, with the W mint mark planned from the start.