The 2007 First Spouse Gold Coins served as the inaugural year strikes for a new program from the US Mint. This series honors the spouses of the former Presidents of the United States with strikes from 1/2 ounce of .9999 fine gold.
2007 First Spouse Gold Coins - Click to Enlarge
Congress authorized the First Spouse Gold Coins with the passage of the Presidential $1 Coin Act (Public Law 109-145) which also authorized a series of circulating dollar coins honoring the Presidents themselves. Aside from being authorized by the same law, the coins are issued on approximately the same schedule with four Presidents honored per year and their associated spouse coins issued that same year.
If the President had more than one spouse while in office, both will be honored on separate coins. If the President served without a spouse, an image emblematic of Liberty used during that President’s tenure on a coin will be shown instead.
Each coin is struck from one half ounce of 24-karat gold at the US Mint’s facility in West Point. They feature a diameter of 1.043 inches and a thickness of 0.074 inches and are produced in both proof and uncirculated condition. The obverse of each includes inscriptions of the honored individuals names, their years of service, the year of minting and IN GOD WE TRUST and LIBERTY. The reverse contains the inscriptions of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM, $10, 1/2 OZ. and .9999 FINE GOLD.
Four different coins were issued by the US Mint as part of the First Spouse Gold Coin series in 2007 including:
- Martha Washington Gold Coins, honoring the wife of George Washington
- Abigail Adams Gold Coins, honoring the wife of John Adams
- Jefferson’s Liberty Gold Coins, representative of the tenure of Thomas Jefferson
- Dolley Madison Gold Coins, honoring the wife of James Madison
The obverse of these coins contains a portrait of the spouse while the reverse shows a scene from their life. The exception to this is the Jefferson Liberty strike which shows Liberty taken from the Draped Bust Half-Cent coin from 1800–1808, and a reverse showing the Jefferson Monument found on his estate of Monticello.
