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New Presidential Dollar coins:

~Unusual Edge Letters on President coins

~US mint $ coin press release.

~Production Schedule for upcoming Dollars.

~Legislation Authorizing Presidential Dollar Coins in 2007.

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July 2007

God-less dollars? What are they?

The United States government mint has acknowledged the accidental release of “God-less dollar” coins.

Presidential Dollar Series Released

The first of the new 2007 George Washington Presidential dollar coins have been released. US government plans are to release four coins per year, featuring four different US presidents. Presidents will be released in the order that they served as president, with George Washington being honored on the first coin.

Presidential Dollar coin with In God We Trust edge lettering

Picture of Washington dollar

Presidential dollar coins are gold in color, however they are not made of real gold. Instead they are minted from a metal mixture that is mostly copper. Size and metallic finish is similar to the Sacagawea dollar coin.

P and D mint mark dollars are being released into the federal reserve banking system and are available at many local banks. S mint dollar coins will only be available by special purchase from the US mint.

In an unusual move, the US mint has put the date, mint mark, and mottos such as “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum” on the edge of the coin. The edge letters are only visible by looking at the coins from the side.

Why the unusual edge design? Sources close to the mint said, “Moving these inscriptions to the coin’s edge, allows more room for the other design elements on the face of the coins”. In other words, removing this information from the face of the coin would allow a larger presidential design and with more detail. The president’s portrait wouldn’t be crowded out by such things as dates, mottos, etc.

Image of edge lettering on Presidential dollas

picture of coin’s edge lettering

One collector summed up the coin hobby’s thinking about the writing on the coin’s edge by saying, “It’s nice to have something new and unusual like edge lettering.”

To produce the edge lettering, the front and back of the coins are first stamped. After this minting process the coins are sent through a separate machine that impresses the edge lettering.

Missing edge lettering – Godless coins found

A few collectors have reported finding “God-less” dollars, coins without the “In God We Trust” inscription or the edge lettering. Independent coin grading services such as PCGS have authenticated some of these “Plain Edge” presidential dollars and now the US mint has acknowledged that they exist.

Unnamed mint officials say that evidently one batch (or part of a batch) of presidential dollars missed the step of going through the edge lettering machine, thereby resulting in no edge lettering on that batch of coins.

How scarce are the God-less dollars?

Exact mintages of plain edge dollars is unknown. They evidently are somewhat scarce. Currently God-less, plain edge dollars (as of the time of this writing) are selling from about $100 for very low grade plain edge errors to several hundred dollars for higher grade certified coins.

The US mint has stated that they will improve the production process so that such errors do not occur in the future.

See another error -

“DOUBLE edge lettering” John Adams presidential dollars.

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