New Dollar Coins Are Missing “In God We Trust” – Outdated!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email urges readers to reject new dollar coins that are missing the “In God We Trust” national motto.
The Truth:
The U.S. Mint mistakenly issued more than 100,000 “godless dollars” in 2007 — it wasn’t a backhanded government effort to remove references to God from currency.
Shortly after the coins were minted in 2007, a forwarded email circulated with a picture of the godless coin, and it urged people to refuse to accept all dollar coins in protest:
Who originally put ‘In God We Trust’ onto our currency?
My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins.
All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE
Together we can force them out of circulation.
Nearly 10 years later, the forwarded email still periodically resurfaces. Each time, it leads readers to believe that the government has intentionally removed “In God We Trust” from “new” dollar coins that are being released.
However, NBC News and Fox News both reported in March 2007 that edge inscriptions that were supposed to read “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum” and the mint year were mistakenly left off up to 100,000 George Washington dollar coins. The coins reportedly made it passed inspectors in Philadelphia and went into circulation on February 15, 2007.
The U.S. Mint struck 300 million coins with golden coloring that slightly larger thicker than a quarter that year. Naturally, the dollar coins that are missing the “In God We Trust” edge inscription have since become a somewhat valuable to collectors. The first error coin discovered sold for $600 — but the price quickly came down. Today, they have been known to fetch up to $50.
NGC Coin Explorer explains that the coins are extremely rare because many of them were held in storage at banks around the country. However, NGC estimates that 250,000 coins were missing the edge inscriptions — more than the initial estimate that 100,000 coins were impacted:
George Washington was the first coin of the golden dollar series honoring Presidents of the United States. While the initial fervor of the new series pushed up mintages, the coins didn’t circulate and most are still in storage at banks around the country.
The Presidential dollar coin series was the first series the U.S. Mint had produced in decades with edge lettering. The date, mint mark, IN GOD WE TRUST and E PLURIBUS UNUM were all struck into the edge. On the MS coins, this was done as a separate process after the coins were struck.
Apparently, an entire bin of perhaps 250,000 coins was mistakenly released without going through this process, leading to a rush on banks with eager collectors hoping to find valuable errors. Most of them seemed to be concentrated around the area of the Federal Reserve bank branch in Jacksonville, FL.
Some have speculated that the government intentionally left the “In God We Trust” edge inscription off of the coins in a subtle attempt to remove references to God from U.S. currency. We haven’t been able to find anything to back up that claim.