Presidential Dollar - John Adams

The John Adams Presidential Dollar was released in 2007 as the second entry in the Presidential $1 Coin Program, honoring the second U.S. president shortly after the George Washington coin launched the series. Like other coins in the series, it features Adams's portrait on the obverse and shares the common Statue of Liberty reverse design used across the early Presidential Dollars.

The Adams dollar is remembered in collector circles for edge-lettering errors similar to those found on the Washington coin, including examples with missing or doubled incused text, making early Presidential Dollar issues a popular area for error and variety collecting.

John Adams served as the second President of the United States from 1797 to 1801, and his coin followed Washington's as part of the Mint's chronological rollout of presidential portraits beginning in 2007. The Presidential Dollar Act required that presidents be honored in the order they served, so Adams's release came soon after Washington's in the program's inaugural year.

As with the Washington dollar, some Adams dollars from the Philadelphia mint were struck with edge-lettering defects, including coins missing the incused edge inscriptions entirely and others showing doubled lettering. These errors reinforced public and media interest in the new edge-lettering feature of the series and drew scrutiny to the Mint's production process for the technique.

The Adams coin, like Washington's, used the same general design team and manufacturing process established for the series, with the Mint making adjustments to reduce edge-lettering errors as the program progressed through subsequent presidents.

The obverse shows a portrait of John Adams along with his name and years in office, 1797-1801. The reverse, shared by the first several presidents in the series, depicts the Statue of Liberty along with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the $1 denomination.

As with all coins in this series, the date, mint mark, and mottos E PLURIBUS UNUM and IN GOD WE TRUST are incused into the edge rather than printed on the coin's faces. The coin retains the golden manganese brass clad appearance and 26.5mm diameter common to the entire Presidential Dollar series.

Collectors checking for edge errors should examine the edge lettering closely for absence of text (a blank edge) or doubling, similar to the process used for identifying Washington dollar errors, since the same production issues affected multiple presidents in the series' first year.

Regular Adams Presidential Dollars are common and typically trade near face value or with only a small premium in circulated or mint-state condition. Edge-lettering error coins, including missing-edge-lettering and doubled-lettering examples, can be worth considerably more, especially in higher uncirculated grades and with third-party certification confirming the error.

As interest in the initial wave of Presidential Dollar errors has matured, prices for common error types have generally settled into more modest, though still above-face-value, ranges compared to the excitement surrounding their initial discovery.