Dollar coin gets a makeover

WASHINGTON — Can George Washington and Thomas Jefferson succeed where Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea failed? The U.S. Mint is hoping America's presidents will win acceptance, finally, for the maligned dollar coin.

The public will get the chance to decide starting in February when the first of the new coins, bearing the image of the first president, is introduced.

Washington, John Adams, Jefferson and James Madison are scheduled to grace the coin in 2007, with a different president appearing every three months.

The series will honor four presidents per year, in the order they served in office. Each president will appear only once, except for Grover Cleveland, who will be featured twice because he was the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms. To be depicted on a coin, a president must have been dead for at least two years.

The idea of rotating designs comes from the highly successful 50-state quarter program. Since its launch in 1999, this program has featured five state designs each year in the order the state joined the union.

The Mint hopes the presidential program will enjoy similar success, in part because of the bold designs on the new coins.

Those designs were to be made public today at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, home of some of the famous paintings that served as models for the coins.

"These designs are beautiful and so eye-catching that a lot of Americans are going to do a double take when they get them in their change the first time," said Edmund Moy, the director of the Mint.

The coins will be the same size as the Sacagawea dollar — a little larger than a quarter — and the same golden color as the Sacagawea. The image of the president will be on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other.

The images will be slightly larger than those on a quarter because space was freed up by moving some of the traditional wording, such as "In God We Trust," to the edge of the coin. Edge lettering has not been tried on an American coin since 1933.