Abraham Lincoln 2010 US Presidential One Dollar Coin
Featuring one of the most famous former Presidents of the United States, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Dollar generated significant interest from both coin collectors and the general public. This was the sixteenth release for the series overall and the final release for the year 2010.
Born into a poor frontier family, Abraham Lincoln would become a self taught lawyer and serve in the Illinois legislature and the House of Representatives. While campaigning for the Senate, his debates on slavery with Stephen A. Douglas brought him to national attention and helped secure the Republican presidential nomination. After being elected, his first term would be dominated by the American Civil War and efforts to abolish slavery. Lincoln would be assassinated just weeks into his second term, as the war was drawing to an end.
In the year before the release of the the Lincoln Presidential Dollar, the bicentennial of his birth had been celebrated with four different reverse designs for the 2009 Lincoln Cent and with the issuance of the 2009 Lincoln Commemorative Silver Dollar. In 2010, the cent would feature a new reverse design to represent his preservation of the union.
On November 18, 2010, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Dollar was released into circulation, capping two years of increased presence within U.S. coinage. The release was marked by an official launch ceremony held at President Lincoln’s Cottage on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, DC. The event was attended by US Mint Director Edmund Moy, the Director of Lincoln’s Cottage Erin Carlson Mast, and many enthusiastic members of the public.
The obverse of the coin featured a portrait of Lincoln designed and sculpted by Don Everhart. The inscriptions on the obverse included his name, the order of the Presidency “16th”, years of the term “1861-1865″, and the motto “In God We Trust”.
The reverse of the coin was also designed and sculpted by Everhart. It portrayed the Statue of Liberty with inscriptions “United States of America” and the denomination “$1″. The incuse edge lettering of the coin included the date, mint mark, and the motto “E Pluribus Unum”.
Production for circulation took place at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints, with a combined 97,020,000 coins struck. This represented the highest production for an issue of the series in more than a year, due to the anticipated higher public demand. Collector versions of the coin were struck at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints in satin finish and at the San Francisco Mint in proof. Numismatic products issued included 25-coin rolls, First Day Coin Covers, and the Presidential Dollar & First Spouse Medal Set, as well as numerous variations of annual and series sets.
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Dollar Coin Specifications:
Diameter: 26.5 mm
Weight: 8.1g
Thickness: 2.0 mm
Edge: Lettered
Composition: 88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese, 2% nickel
Mintage: 48,020,000 (Philadelphia), 49,000,000 (Denver)
Presidential $1 Coin — Lady Liberty Reverse Statue of Liberty, 1886
She is the work of sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who enlisted the assistance of engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel Tower, to help him solve some of the structural challenges presented by creating a statue of such magnitude.
The Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884 and shipped to the United States in June 1885, having been disassembled into 350 individual pieces that were packed in over 200 crates for the transatlantic voyage. In four months’ time, she was re-assembled in New York Harbor, standing just over 151 feet from the top of the statue’s base to the tip of the torch her right hand holds high above the waters of New York Harbor.
Originally intended as a gift to celebrate the American Centennial in 1876, the Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a symbol of the friendship forged between the new American government and the government of France during the American Revolutionary War.
The tablet she holds in her left hand carries the inscription "July IV MDCCLXXVI" in reference to the July 4, 1776, signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the Nation.
There are 25 windows running the length of Lady Liberty’s crown, which is topped by seven rays, meant to convey both the light of the sun and the seven seas and continents of the world.
For millions of Americans, the Statue of Liberty was the first sight that their ancestors saw as they arrived in America after having left their homes in search of a better life for themselves and for their families.
To celebrate her 100th anniversary, the Statue of Liberty was featured on a United States commemorative coin in 1986. In 1997, a close-up image of the Lady Liberty was chosen for the obverse of the new American Eagle platinum coins.
Presidential $1 Coins
Presidential Dollar Coins feature larger, more dramatic artwork, as well as edge-incused inscriptions meant to revitalize the design of United States coins and return circulating coinage to its position as an object of aesthetic beauty.The U.S. Mint launched the Presidential $1 Coin Program in 2007. The 10-year initiative includes one dollar coins featuring obverse designs honoring the Presidents in the order in which they served in office.
Read less Image of Presidential $1 Coins
The U.S. Mint produces and issues four Presidential Dollar coins per year, each with a common reverse design featuring a striking rendition of the Statue of Liberty. The program was authorized by the Presidential $1 Dollar Coin Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-145).
2007 Presidential Dollars
2008 Presidential Dollars
2009 Presidential Dollars
2010 Presidential Dollars
Millard Fillmore Franklin Pierce James Buchanan Abraham Lincoln
2011 Presidential Dollars
2012 Presidential Dollars
2013 Presidential Dollars
2014 Presidential Dollars
2015 Presidential Dollars
2016 Presidential Dollars
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he served for twelve years. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Because he had originally agreed not to run for a second term in Congress, and because his opposition to the Mexican–American War was unpopular among Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his successful law practice. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois. In 1858, while taking part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the U.S. Senate race to Douglas.
In 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. With very little support in the slaveholding states of the South, he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His victory prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America before he moved into the White House - no compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery and secession. Subsequently, on April 12, 1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union in a declaration of war. As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats, who called for more compromise, anti-war Democrats (called Copperheads), who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory. His Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy.
Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war. His primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the controversial ex parte Merryman decision, and he averted potential British intervention in the war by defusing the Trent Affair in late 1861. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant. He also made major decisions on Union war strategy, including a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, moves to take control of Kentucky and Tennessee, and using gunboats to gain control of the southern river system. Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond; each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his complex moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863; Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.
An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, Lincoln reached out to the War Democrats and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. Anticipating the war's conclusion, Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. On April 14, 1865, five days after the April 9th surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer.
Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents.