by James Stayer

Created on: March 10, 2007   Last Updated: August 13, 2010

This year the US mint has introduced a new President dollar coin. Like the state quarters, 4 different presidents will be featured on the coin per year. The Mint will produce a small golden colored coin with each of the presidents, changing presidents every 3 months. Currently the President on the coin is George Washington. These coins offer a great opportunity to start collecting coins.

This is the time to start collecting the president dollars, just as the collection is introduced. You can collect based on several different factors including, mint, president, complete year or collection, circulation status, or errors. Circulation status refers to whether the coin is in good, fair, very fair, extra fair, about unciruclated, uncirculated or brilliant uncirculated. The brilliant uncirculated coins are commonly called BU, while the uncirculated coins are called "uncs". Most collectors that are serious about their collection prefer to collect coins that are in BU state or coins that are directly from the mint in special packaging called proofs.

As time trickles out of the hour glass, the value of the coins increase. Looking back at the Lincoln pennies, the first year penny could be worth over $4,000 depending on the condition of the coin and where it was minted. Currently there is a handful of active mints, common mints include the mints in Denver, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The mint located at West Point is used for America Eagles, the silver, gold, and platinum coins. One mint mark that is no longer used and is considered a rarity is the Carson City mint. Most of the president dollars that you will find in your change will be from either the Denver or the Philadelphia mints.

Error coins have appeal to many collectors, they take pride having something that was not meant to be. There is reports of people finding the new Washington dollars with some of the writing missing and other reports of the writing being upside down. These are considered errors and are valued higher than the common coins. Other errors can include the face, or the obverse, of the coin not being correctly struck by the die, leaving the imprint off-center. Another error is when a coin is struck 2 or more times, leaving multiple images on the coin.

No matter how you decide to build your collection a good foundation would be to collect the BU president dollars from the first one now, to the very last one minted years from now.

Learn more about this author, James Stayer.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.