The United States Mint will likely strike commemorative coins, including collectible editions in pink gold, with designs emblematic of the fight against breast cancer.
On Tuesday, April 19, the U.S. Senate passed by Unanimous Consent the Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coin Act. The legislation, numbered H.R. 2722, had already won approval in the U.S. House of Representatives back on July 15. The bill will soon make its way to President Obama who is expected to sign it into law.
At that point, the U.S. Mint will begin taking steps to design, produce and then sell 2018-dated Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coins in collector qualities of proof and uncirculated and in quantities of up to 50,000 $5 pink gold coins, 400,000 silver dollars and 750,000 clad half-dollars.
H.R. 2722 calls for a competition process that would select winning designs for the commemoratives. It also states that the $5 coins must be made of “pink gold” which contains not less than 75% gold. Pink gold is most often associated with jewelry, with the typical color created by a mixture of 75% gold, 20% copper and 5% silver. Different copper levels change color intensities.
The dollars would be minted with a purity of not less than 0.900 silver, according to the bill’s language, which means the U.S. Mint would likely produce them in .999 or .9999 fine silver.
Under the terms of H.R. 2722, a surcharge of $35 per gold coin, $10 per silver dollar and $5 per clad half-dollar would be added to each coin sale with collected funds paid to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (www.bcrfcure.org) for furthering research.
