Fed Holds 16-Year Surplus of $1 Coins

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The Federal Reserve has enough inventory of $1 coins to match circulation needs for nearly 16 years, according to an estimate revealed in the agency’s 2022 annual report to Congress about Presidential dollars.

CoinNews photo of 2022 Ely S. Parker Native American $1 Coins
Until 2011, the U.S. Mint produced golden-colored, manganese-brass dollar coins for circulation. Federal Reserve Banks still have about 888 million of these older-struck dollars in storage. Today, the U.S. Mint strikes clad dollars but only for numismatic sales, like the 2022 Native American $1 Coins shown in the CoinNews photo above.

Published in December, the report indicated that the projection considered how many $1 coins were needed over the past five years. It also noted that $83 million were pulled from Reserve Bank vaults for commerce through the 12 months ending June 30, 2022. At that time, inventories of dollars fell to about 928 million. The agency has since published another two quarterly periods of inventory data, reducing the number to 888 million dollars, marking another 40 million drop through the last six months of 2022.

Reserve Bank inventories of $1 coins peaked to 1.44 billion in the third quarter of 2012. They have trended lower since that peak by several million every month.

The United States Mint produces, sells and then delivers circulating coins to Reserve Banks to support its service to commercial banks and other financial institutions. Most of the Fed’s vaulted dollars are Presidential $1 Coins. As directed by Public Law 109-145, the U.S. Mint was required to produce them in commemoration of former American presidents from 2007 to 2016. However, the public preferred paper money over clad dollars, and inventories of $1 coins resultantly soared by as much as 298 million a year. The trajectory had Fed officials talking about needing more storage space.

2007-2022 $1 Coin Quarterly Inventories, Payments, and Receipts
Chart of $1 Coin Quarterly Inventories, Payments, and Receipts (Q1 2007 to Q4 2022)

The build-up was eventually checked in December 2011, when the stockpile had reached 1.42 billion coins, after Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner halted $1 coin production for circulation.

Today, the U.S. Mint still produces clad $1 coins but only for collectible products offered to the public. These include one a year featuring a design honoring the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans and four a year depicting American innovation.

CoinNews photo 2022 American Innovation Dollar Reverse Proof Set
This CoinNews photo shows a 2022 American Innovation Dollar Reverse Proof Set, an example of $1 coins produced by the U.S. Mint for collectors.

As a comparison to the most Fed ordered U.S. denomination for circulation, the U.S Mint struck over 6.3 billion Lincoln cents in 2022 alone. Ironically, it costs the Mint 2.72 cents to make and distribute each one.

This last table shows Fed $1 coin inventories, payments and receipts since 2007.

$1 Coin Quarterly Inventories, Payments, and Receipts
(Millions of pieces)

  U.S. Mint Orders Reserve Bank
Receipts
from Circulation
Reserve Bank
Payments
to Circulation
Reserve Bank
Inventories
2022: Q4 0 21 46 888
2022: Q3 0 28 43 913
2022: Q2 0 23 52 928
2022: Q1 0 22 45 956
2021: Q4 0 20 33 979
2021: Q3 0 25 43 993
2021: Q2 0 20 47 1,011
2021: Q1 0 25 31 1,038
2020: Q4 0 25 32 1,044
2020: Q3 0 26 39 1,051
2020: Q2 0 15 29 1,064
2020: Q1 0 42 43 1,078
2019: Q4 0 43 63 1,079
2019: Q3 0 43 49 1,099
2019: Q2 0 41 50 1,105
2019: Q1 0 45 52 1,114
2018: Q4 0 42 64 1,121
2018: Q3 0 45 58 1,143
2018: Q2 0 44 53 1,155
2018: Q1 0 41 59 1,164
2017: Q4 0 44 60 1,183
2017: Q3 0 46 64 1,199
2017: Q2 0 42 66 1,217
2017: Q1 0 46 58 1,241
2016: Q4 0 45 55 1,254
2016: Q3 0 45 58 1,263
2016: Q2 0 40 52 1,276
2016: Q1 0 47 52 1,288
2015: Q4 0 46 55 1,293
2015: Q3 0 48 67 1,302
2015: Q2 0 44 58 1,321
2015: Q1 0 48 54 1,335
2014: Q4 0 49 66 1,341
2014: Q3 0 54 54 1,358
2014: Q2 0 50 70 1,358
2014: Q1 0 49 50 1,378
2013: Q4 0 49 55 1,379
2013: Q3 0 50 74 1,385
2013: Q2 0 53 66 1,409
2013: Q1 0 54 60 1,422
2012: Q4 0 50 62 1,428
2012: Q3 0 60 51 1,440
2012: Q2 0 58 60 1,432
2012: Q1 0 86 72 1,434
2011: Q4 95 103 143 1,420
2011: Q3 92 129 129 1,365
2011: Q2 88 101 124 1,273
2011: Q1 86 101 116 1,208
2010: Q4 96 97 130 1,137
2010: Q3 88 96 123 1,074
2010: Q2 72 92 105 1,013
2010: Q1 89 108 120 954
2009: Q4 77 123 110 878
2009: Q3 85 118 117 788
2009: Q2 87 88 122 702
2009: Q1 96 92 120 649
2008: Q4 104 88 138 580
2008: Q3 96 93 138 526
2008: Q2 109 82 136 475
2008: Q1 119 87 153 421
2007: Q4 144 85 153 368
2007: Q3 171 87 178 292
2007: Q2 201 69 223 212
2007: Q1 301 47 250 165
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Craig

The Chinese are much too smart to be duped by us. The Chinese use TicTok to edify their citizens with math/science programs but pump our citizens (or the young culture) with what…dance clips. And we’re going to outsmart them!

REB

Sad but true. We are an easily distracted, idiotic lot in this country.

Last edited 11 months ago by REB
Seth Riesling

And, yet many of our GOP/Republican politicians in Washington D.C. & at the state level are fixated on outlawing Drag Queens & Public library Drag Queen storybook reading events that don’t hurt anyone. Why don’t they focus on real problems like bank failures, healthcare reform, tax reform, banning assault guns again, & Trump-like pathological liar Congressman George Santos!?
And coinage reform to address losses producing 1-cent & 5-cents coins & getting rid of the surcharges (a “tax” by another name) on commemorative coin programs.

NumisdudeTX

Last edited 11 months ago by Seth Riesling
REB

… yet with state sales taxes, the damn things still circulate. I can’t even remember the last time I got a dollar coin in change and I use cash pretty much on a daily basis.

Chris Terp

Dollar coins are popular in Nevada. Why? Slot machines and players accept and use them 😉

Seth Riesling

That current number of 888 million $1 coins held in Federal Reserve Bank vaults includes -Susan B. Anthony dollars from 1979, 1980, 1981 & 1999 & Sacagawea/Native American dollars & Presidential dollars. There were so many more of these dollar coins in their vaults at one point that the Federal Reserve System built a new building/vault in Texas to hold a lot of them. What a waste of good taxpayer money!

NumisdudeTX

Chris Terp

Now you’re talking Major D, the second greatest space machine. What’s first? Star Trek’s Doomsday Machine 😉

Chris Terp

Before the series went overboard on PC I’d put the TARDIS up on the list, now the show is just annoying 🙁

Also no weaponry other than time changing.

Last edited 11 months ago by Chris Terp
Papa Patten

Time to end these useless gold-dollar coins. 25 years of Sacajawea dollars is enough. Time for something new/useful that can replace the paper dollar.

Antonio

Release the rounds! Woof, woof!!

Rooster

They are fun to hand out. Many will flip them over and over scrutinizing them not sure what they are.

c_q

just stop making the dollar bill, these will get used pretty quick.

already after inflation a dollar today is worth what a quarter could buy 40 years ago. washington is on both the $1 bill and the quarter, so it’s not like we are losing a president by discontinuing the $1 bill

CaliSkier

R.I.P George Floyd. Sad story and I’m sorry for posting such a serious response to your lighthearted comment, however Kaiser Wilhelm, this caption and picture brought back the memory. “Floyd, aged 46, was being arrested on suspicion of attempting to pass a counterfeit bill at a neighbourhood convenience store. On May 25, 2020, a white police officer knelt on his neck for nine and half minutes, cutting off oxygen to his brain as he cried out “I can’t breathe.”” The initial police contact, came about due to a counterfeit $20. Deaths of civilians, especially the disproportionate numbers of people of… Read more »

Dazed and Coinfused

they are probably familiar with our politicians and leaders and take literally that their heads are up their democrat logo.

Chris Terp

U.S. Navy submarine fleet only sees targets & whales in the world’s oceans 😉

Daniel

I remember 1984 like it weee yesterday. My grandfather gave all the grand kids a shiny $1 coin, as Australia moved from $1 notes to coins.
You yanks running two versions in parallel have proved you can be half pregnant.
Unless strippers start accepting deposits via their prison wallets, It’ll be notes for a while

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