Sacagawea Coin Designers Not Thrilled with New Law

   

President Bush signed the Native American $1 Coin Act mandating the redesign of Sacagawea Dollar. Starting in 2009, the Sacagawea reverse will no longer have the soaring eagle depicted.

Instead, it’ll bear a famous American Indian or American Indian event that’ll change each year.

CoinNews.net has discussed the success and various failures of U.S. dollar coins through past opinions and articles.

Staying mostly away from design comments (outside suggesting the new presidential dollars have a token-like feel for their reverse), the failures discussed have been more about implementation policy in trying to make a dollar coin popular in actual daily usage.

It hasn’t happened with the Susan B. Anthony’s, the Sacagawea Golden Dollars or the new Presidential $1 Coins.

But what about coin design and its impact?

What the original Sacagawea Golden Dollar designers say about the new law

Turning to the coming Sacagawea coin designs and changes, many would find it interesting to hear what the original Sacagawea designers are thinking. The Albuquerque Tribune is one step ahead. They’ve already inquired.

Glenna Goodacre who drew the Sacagawea obverse design said it’s, "a silly idea." The context of the statement seems to be in relation to one of the law’s intent - make Sacagawea Dollars stand out with the new Presidential $1 Coins.

She commented that the current reverse eagle design by former Mint artist Tom Rogers is, “beautiful and complements the obverse perfectly." Many would agree.

On his part, Rogers isn’t "thrilled" about the law but did write in Coin World, “I choose to celebrate the experience of creating the coin with Glenna.”

Unfortunately, new dollar coins or new designs won’t result in increased daily usage while the dollar bill is still around.

Yet, if the new Sacagawea designs are solid, most coin collectors will likely remain open to the change. And that doesn’t mean they’ll appreciate past Sacagawea designs any less.

For the full Albuquerque Tribune article, visit Santa Fe artist calls plan to revamp Sacagawea coin “silly”.