Senate Passes Bill to Mint Coins for Moon Landing’s 50th Anniversary

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Buzz Aldrin on moon
Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon. His helmet visor shows a reflection of the U.S. flag and the lunar lander, features to be depicted on proposed commemorative coins.

Coins celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing are one step closer to reality. Just five days after the House gave its approval, the Senate on Dec. 10 passed legislation seeking coins to commemorate the semicentennial.

If President Obama signs the bill, numbered H.R.2726 and dubbed the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act, the United States Mint in 2019 will produce and sell collector coins that:

  • bear unique edges,
  • are curved in shape like the 2014-dated HOF Baseball coins,
  • feature a common obverse design selected by competition, and
  • share a reverse depiction of the visor and part of the helmet from the famous photo of Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

These coins would be offered in varying quantities, collector finishes, denominations, and compositions. Some of the details include:

  • Up to 50,000 proof and uncirculated $5 gold coins in at least 90% gold
  • Up to 400,000 proof and uncirculated silver dollars in at least 90% silver,
  • Up to 750,000 proof and uncirculated clad half-dollars, and
  • Up to 100,000 proof $1 silver coins in 5 ounces of .999 fine silver.

In addition to their concave/convex shape, their edges to the extent possible would be manufactured such that their reverse design extends all the way to the obverse design.

CoinNews will discuss the coins in more detail after the bill’s expected signing into law.

 

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chuck

Hope I can get them!! Congress did something without blaming each other!!!

Jp

Sounds like an interesting compilation of coins. Not a big fan of the gold $5 curved as they are so small. Gold in a flat coin would be great. I think the 5oz silver could be quite showy, but I bet the Mint slams us on price on those! 100,000 (TOO MANY). 400,000 silver dollars WAY TOO MANY!
Oh, and can you imagine the overkill of packaging that will come with these?
I like the moon landing commemorative idea though.

jim

Chuck – re: not blaming – not a political decision but a joint decision to stick it to coin collectors. JP – re: TOO MANY – Congress apparently rubber stamps commemorative coin laws without thinking, using the same mintages year after year. The exception this year is the inclusion of the 5 oz silver coins. (Will they be convex/concave too? That’ll be a new collector coin, if so.) Wait till next time to see which boiler plate is used for the next commemorative coins. But yes, if they offer a set of the 4 coins you can probably expect to… Read more »

joera

No telling really how many they are going to make yet. I mean it’s up to 400,000 combined for proof and uncirculated. But yea it will probably be too many as always. But I will still get them.

Vadim

So based on the high mintage limits, nothing came of the meeting in Philadelphia to discuss the hobby’s future?

jim

As I understand it the Philadelphia meetings were with US Mint personnel. Since the commemorative coins are laws from Congress they set the mintages as they see fit (i.e. whatever the boilerplate from a previous commemorative coin was without thinking). Obviously the mint has chosen to keep the feedback they got to themselves without informing Congress or anybody else (since we haven’t heard anything since). Another example of the mint being secretive about what they do and the information they have.

Robert Hall

The obverse of the coin should show Neil Armstrong stepping off the Apollo ll ladder onto the moon. The module should be curved to look as if it were coming off the coin with a 3d effect. Star Wars style maybe. That is my view of the coin, now I just need an artist to complete it.

jim

At least this is a commemorative coin we can be proud of – something the US and only the US has ever done. And it wasn’t war related. Too bad we missed the 25th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble telescope – another proud to be an American event not yet commemorated by Congress.