Sacagawea Coin

The history & value of the Sacagawea golden dollar minted in the year 2000. Between 1804 and 1806, Sacagawea traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean.

• Sacagawea Coin Size
• Sacagawea Coin Errors

Country United States Type Common coinYears 2000-2008Value 1 Dollar (1.00 USD)Metal Copper-zinc-manganese-nickel clad CopperWeight 8.1 gDiameter 26.5 mmThick.

• 2020 P D & S Sacagawea Dollar Native American 3 Coin Set with Proof BU $19.95$19.95 Get it as soon as Sat, Oct 17 FREE Shipping on your first order shipped by Amazon.
• The Sacagawea Dollar was introduced in 2000 as the new circulating dollar coin of the United States of America. During the first two years of issue, the coins were produced in large numbers amidst optimistic expectations for widespread circulation.

Sacagawea or Sacajawea was the Shoshone Indian woman who guided and helped Lewis and Clark in their exploration to the Western United States.

The following are the suggested spellings of Sacagawea:

Meriwether Lewis spelled it as Sahkahgarwea, Sahcahgagwea, Sarcargahwea and Sahcahgahweah; while Clark spelled it as Sahcahgahwea, Sahcahgarweah, Sahcargarweah, and Sahcahgar Wea.

The existence of the Sacajawea coin

The Sacagawea dollar was conceived to replace the unpopular and ill-fated Susan B. Anthony coin which was confused with the quarters because of their similarity in size, reeded edge, and indistinguishable color.

As a result, the Anthony dollar production was suspended and a new coin was produced that has different edge and a new metallic composition. However, it has the same size, weight, and diameter as with the previous mini-dollar coin.

Physical composition of Sacagawea coin

The Sacagawea dollar coin features distinctive qualities including: a golden color, extra-wide border, smooth edge like the nickels. It weighs 8.1 grams. Has a thickness of 2 mm, and has a diameter of 26.5 mm. The Sacagawea coin is a three-layer clad metal composed of pure copper core and two outer layers of 77 percent copper, 12 percent zinc, 7 percent manganese, and 4 percent nickel.

Sacagawea Coin Size

How a Sacagawea golden dollar looks like

The golden dollar’s obverse or heads featured the portrait of Sacagawea, the Shoshone Native American woman. The coin showed Sacagawea carrying her infant son, Jean Baptiste on her back.

Glenna Goodacre designed the obverse of the coin. She depicted Sacagawea with large, dark eyes as the Shoshone legends described her. Goodacre’s principal model for the coin was a college female student, Randy’L He-dow Teton.

The reverse of the coin featured a soaring eagle encircled by 17 stars and was designed by Thomas D. Rogers Sr. The eagle represented peace and freedom.
The seventeen stars appearing around the eagle embodied each State at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Numismatists dubbed the Sacagawea coin as the “golden dollar” because of its unique golden color. It has a smooth edge unlike the grooved Susan B. Anthony dollar. It also has a wider border than any other U.S. circulating coins.

The use of golden color was to ensure that the Sacajawea coin can easily be distinguished from other American coins.

Sacagawea dollar mintmarks

Sacagawea coins were the first Indian American dollar coin of the new millennium. The two branches of the U.S. Mint, the Philadelphia (P mintmark) and Denver (D mintmark) produced the Sacajawea coins. On the other hand, the proof Sacajawea coins with “S” mintmarks were made at the San Francisco mint.

Sacagawea proof sets

Proof sets of Sacagawea golden dollars were sold at a premium by the U. S. Mint.

The Sacagawea error coins

Like the Statehood quarters, Sacagawea dollars have started turning up with major minting mistakes.

The following are the Sacagawea error coin values:

A 2000-P Sacagawea dollar or Type l (no rim) planchet which is literally blank is worth $500.

Another 2000-P Sacagawea dollar struck with 30 percent off center usually costs $3,500.

A 2000-P dollar struck 25 percent off center on a 30 percent straight off clip is worth $1,750.

A 30 percent clipped planchet of a 2000-P Sacagawea dollar costs $300.

2000-P Sacagawea dollar struck on an aluminum is worth $9000 or more.

Lastly, the Sacagawea dollar “mule” double denomination error costs $75,000. The first double denomination mule error of U.S. Mint was a Washington quarter on the obverse and a Sacagawea dollar on the reverse.

Remember the excitement over the Sacagawea coin? If you were in any way involved with the coin collecting community in 2000, you may recall the buzz surrounding the long-anticipated release of the Sacagawea dollar coin. The Sacagawea golden dollar was supposed to fix all of the problems associated with the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which had been released in 1979 but quickly failed to circulate. By 1981, the coin was in production only for coin sets. Later that year, the SBA dollar was retired. It was minted again one last time in 1999, when dollar coins were seeing circulation in the postage stamp machine circuit and some mass transit systems.

The rise use of the dollar coin in the late 1990s brought many in the numismatic community to believe that Sacagawea dollar coin would be a success. Yet, despite efforts and a massive public outreach campaign by the United States Mint encouraging the use of the new dollar coins, the Sacagawea coin failed to gain acceptance. One thing is for sure – the failure of the Sacagawea coin to widely circulate wasn’t due to confusion of the coin with the quarter-dollar, which was part of the downfall for the Susan B. Anthony dollar in the early 1980s.

Designing the Sacagawea Coin

Glenna Goodacre designed the obverse design for the Sacagawea dollar coin. Featuring a portrait of Shoshone woman Sacagawea, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their 1804-06 expedition throughout what would become the western United States, the dollar became the first circulating U.S. coin to feature the figure of a Native American in decades; the Buffalo nickel, which features an obverse depiction of a Native American, was struck from 1913 through 1938.

As Goodacre didn’t have any contemporary portraiture of Sacagawea to use in creating the design, she asked a 22-year-old Shoshone woman named Randy’L He-Dow Teton to pose as a model for the coin. Goodacre also included an image of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Sacagawea’s newborn son, on the dollar coin design.

Additionally, the Sacagawea dollar coin features a distinctive golden color. Many people outside of the coin collecting community originally thought Sacagawea dollar coins actual gold. Of course, that couldn’t be the case given the high bullion value of gold.

What Makes the Sacagawea Golden Dollar “Golden”?

The coin’s metallic composition includes a pure copper core with an outer layer consisting of manganese brass (77% copper, 12% zinc, 7% manganese, and 4% nickel).

The Sacagawea dollar coin weighs 8.1 grams, which makes it heavier than any coin that was widely circulating in 2000, when the series was released; it should be noted that copper-nickel half dollars weigh 11.34 grams, but half dollars were not widely circulating in 2000, making the quarter the next-heaviest circulating denomination at the time, at 5.67 grams.

What Happened to the Sacagawea Dollar Coin?

Nowadays, the Sacagawea golden dollar coin, like the half dollar, fails to circulate. In fact, Sacagawea dollars haven’t been struck for circulation since 2001. Doubtlessly, the reason dollar coins don’t circulate well these days is because they don’t have to – the dollar bill siphons away any logistical need for using a dollar coin. It’s widely theorized that if the dollar coin was put into production and the dollar bill was pulled from commerce, people would widely use the dollar coin through force. A similar scenario happened in Canada during the late 1980s, when that nation transitioned away from using dollar bills and replaced them with small-size, gold-colored “Loonie” dollar coins.

In 2009, the reverse of the Sacagawea dollar coin has been used to display special, annually changing designs depicting key figures and moments in Native American history. These designs will be used for the duration of the Presidential dollar coins, which were first struck in 2007 and are slated to end in 2016.

Sacagawea Coin Values

Standard uncirculated Sacagawea dollar coins are worth $2 to $3, with proofs selling for $10 to $15. The 2000 Goodacre presentation finish Sacagawea coins were struck in a very small quantity (5,000 pieces) and are worth around $600 each.

Sacagawea Coin Errors

The 2001-S and 2002-S proof Sacagawea dollar coins are worth $50 and $25 respectively.

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