Susan B. Anthony Dollar - History and Design

History and Design

Although it is round, the Susan B. Anthony dollar is intended to convey an 11-sided appearance, from the 11-sided rim bordering the edge of both sides. The reverse commemorates the Apollo 11 moon landing with an image of the mission insignia, a design recycled from the earlier Eisenhower Dollar. The 11 sided shape matches the Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages that enclosed a silicon wafer left on the moon. The original design called for the coin itself to be a hendecagon (or, perhaps more accurately, an 11-sided curve of constant width), but vending machine manufacturers protested this plan, claiming that available vending machine technology would require extensive (and expensive) retooling to accommodate the irregular-shaped coin originally proposed.

Because of their similar size and color, it was found to be easy to mistake the coin for a quarter. The originally-planned hendecagon-shaped edge, which would have distinguished it from the quarter, was abandoned because the coin would have jammed vending machines. The hendecagon design was replaced with a depiction of an hendecagon and the same reeded edge as the quarter, thus compounding the confusion. The Anthony dollar was disparagingly referred to as the "Carter quarter" or the "Anthony quarter." 888,842,452 Anthony dollars were produced for circulation (Additional dollars were produced as numismatic items).

The coin was released July 2, 1979. A $1 postage stamp, Scott #1612, was released nationwide on the same day, allowing philatelic/numismatic first day souvenirs to be produced.

While a large quantity were produced in 1979, they failed to circulate well (despite the slogan "Carry three for Susan B.") and a minimal number were produced in 1980. Public reaction to the coin was primarily negative, with complaints that the coin, smaller than previous dollar coins (which were also unpopular), was too easily confused with the Washington quarter. Its unpopularity was compared to the greatly disliked 20¢ piece from 1875, which was also easily confused with the quarter.

In 1981, none were produced for circulation, but instead were produced for numismatic sets marketed by the Mint. Many of those mint sets have been broken up, and it is not unusual to find 1981-dated Anthony dollars in circulation. At the end of production, the Treasury was left with hundreds of millions of the coins in its vaults.

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, vending machines (especially transit and postal machines) began to take higher denomination notes, when previously they had been effectively limited to dollar notes. While change could be given in quarters and smaller coins, more and more such machines began to give change in dollar coins. This led to an increased call on the Treasury's supply. By 1998, the Treasury's stock of dollar coins was near exhaustion. The Mint lacked the legal authority to change the design of the coin, and it was not deemed possible to release the new Sacagawea dollar earlier than 2000. Accordingly, after the longest hiatus for the same design of a circulating coin in U.S. history (one year longer than for the Morgan silver dollar), the coin was restruck in 1999.

Since the Sacagawea dollar's 2000 introduction, the Susan B. Anthony dollar circulated along with it—the two coins have identical metallic signatures to vending machines. The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, which initially proposed taking all remaining Susan B. Anthony dollars out of circulation, merely directed the Secretary of Treasury to review the matter and report back to Congress in 2006.