Some of the first First Spouses coins (Image from www.coincollectingnews.org).
To continue my exploration on "gendered currency" in America, I've decided to research a bit about the First Lady coins created by the Mint. I noticed that these $1 coins with images of the First Ladies kept showing up all over the web when I would do research.
Termed the "First Spouses" coins, they first launched in 2007 and are expected to go until 2016. According to a coin collector's site, this idea has been doing extremely well, perhaps due to limited releases of certain "First Spouses". I noticed that these coins seemed to be solely collectors items, unlike the Susan B. Anthony or Sacajawea dollars. The question I wanted to ask was, since they are doing so well, why not put them on regular, circulated currency?
The Susan B. and Sacajawea gold dollars were both considered unsuccessful attempts at displaying women on American currency. This could be mainly due to these women being placed on the often unpopular one dollar coin. I am wondering though that since those two attempts were somewhat failures that perhaps the Mint decided to surpass trying to circulate famous American women on coins with instead just making them collectable coins. The Mint also seems to be releasing only a select number of these First Lady coins at a time, making them fairly valuable collectables.
I am hoping that with the success of these coins that maybe the Mint will consider making coins with famous American females on them for the future. Maybe they will consider putting females on anything else but the dollar coin, since that type of coin is unpopular in America. I believe that women need to be featured more on American currency, coins and dollars alike. I am wondering though that will females on coins only be successful if they are considered to be "valuable" collectables, rather than everyday coinage?
To continue my exploration on "gendered currency" in America, I've decided to research a bit about the First Lady coins created by the Mint. I noticed that these $1 coins with images of the First Ladies kept showing up all over the web when I would do research.
Termed the "First Spouses" coins, they first launched in 2007 and are expected to go until 2016. According to a coin collector's site, this idea has been doing extremely well, perhaps due to limited releases of certain "First Spouses". I noticed that these coins seemed to be solely collectors items, unlike the Susan B. Anthony or Sacajawea dollars. The question I wanted to ask was, since they are doing so well, why not put them on regular, circulated currency?
The Susan B. and Sacajawea gold dollars were both considered unsuccessful attempts at displaying women on American currency. This could be mainly due to these women being placed on the often unpopular one dollar coin. I am wondering though that since those two attempts were somewhat failures that perhaps the Mint decided to surpass trying to circulate famous American women on coins with instead just making them collectable coins. The Mint also seems to be releasing only a select number of these First Lady coins at a time, making them fairly valuable collectables.
I am hoping that with the success of these coins that maybe the Mint will consider making coins with famous American females on them for the future. Maybe they will consider putting females on anything else but the dollar coin, since that type of coin is unpopular in America. I believe that women need to be featured more on American currency, coins and dollars alike. I am wondering though that will females on coins only be successful if they are considered to be "valuable" collectables, rather than everyday coinage?
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