one-dollar coin denomination was detrimental to that coin’s circulation, so the RTI recommended the production of a dollar coin with a size between that of the quarter and the half dollar.Ī year later, the Treasury commissioned its own study, which resulted in the publication of a report titled, “A New Small Dollar Coin: Technical Considerations”. One of the RTI’s findings was that the large size and weight of the U.S. Mint commissioned the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to look into the efficacy of the United States’ current coinage and its various metallic compositions. This review came one year after the Mint struck cents in an experimental aluminum alloy attempting to reduce the cost of producing one-cent coinage. The Anthony coin was created after a series of outside studies and Treasury reports.

The coin had unanimous support in the United States Senate, which voted on August 22, and passed the House of Representatives by a 368-38 vote on September 26.Ĭongress and the Treasury Department saw the small dollar as a practical alternative to the large cartwheel Eisenhower dollar, which was produced to great fanfare and large numbers but relatively little circulation. Anthony dollar coin came into being after President Jimmy Carter signed its authorizing act into law on October 10, 1978. Once proclaimed the “dollar of the future” but quickly derided as the “Carter quarter” or the “Agony dollar”, the Susan B. Even the Morgan dollar, a large clunky silver coin that went largely unused in much of the country, stayed in service long enough to make America’s silver mining interests wealthy.

Of all of the coins struck over the long career of the United States Mint, no coin had as much support from the federal government only to see it immediately cast aside upon release as the Susan B. The Birth (and Death) of the Modern Small Dollar Anthony dollar was the first small clad dollar struck at the Philadelphia Mint.

Value of usan b anthony coins