New 'Golden' U.S. Dollar Is Already Paying Its Way; Mint Urges Americans to Use, Not Keep, the Coins

The Washington Post, 14 March 2000
By Stephen Barr

Philip N. Diehl, director of the U.S. Mint, leaves no doubt that he thinks the new "golden dollar" coin has made a glittering debut. Now, he just needs to get Americans to spend it.

"The coin is such a hot product that people are holding and seeking big quantities of them," he said.

But Diehl hopes to get Americans in the habit of making change with the golden dollar. He has doubled monthly production of the coin and by month's end, Diehl said, the Mint will ship out a half-billion of the coins.

"It took the Susan B. Anthony 14 years to reach a half-billion. We'll do it in less than 14 weeks," he said.

The Mint clearly hopes the golden dollar coin will wipe away the tarnish left by the Susan B., generally judged a flop because it was just too similar to the quarter.

The debut of the golden dollar and the earlier, celebrated 50-state quarter program, which introduces a new quarter with a distinctive state design every 10 weeks, serve as symbols of a revamped and re-energized Mint under Diehl's direction.

Diehl plans to leave the Mint within the next month or so, having stayed past the normal five-year director's term. During his tenure, he improved relations with the union that represents Mint workers, cut the number of political appointees and converted the Mint from annual congressional appropriations to self-funding from a share of the agency's profits (the typical quarter, for instance, costs only 4 cents to make).

The Mint also has jumped into the Internet world. It sold $ 26 million of coins and related goods at its Web site in the fourth quarter of 1999, even though the agency ran out of products in December and missed part of the peak gift-giving season. Diehl expects the Web site to set a record this month, selling as much as $ 40 million in coins and goods.

The golden dollar bears an image of Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who helped guide explorers Lewis and Clark across the rugged West. Diehl calls the coin "a killer product" that has renewed interest in the Mint and coin collecting. Although the coin is made of mostly manganese and brass, Diehl defends the use of "golden" as appropriate because it meets the test of Webster's definition.

To encourage use of the golden dollar, the Mint this month launched a $ 40 million advertising campaign featuring the dollar-bill George Washington, who makes the pitch on television, radio and the Internet that the dollar coin is convenient to use. Actors play Washington in different scenes, but all use George's face--lifted off the greenback and brought to life by computer animation. The TV spots are aimed at urban-suburban dwellers ages 18 to 49, the group the Mint needs to accept the coin.

The ad campaign follows the stashing of golden dollars in boxes of Cheerios and in the cash registers at 3,000 Wal-Mart stores. When the Mint shipped the dollar coins to Wal-Mart, the agency also sent a promotional mailing to 90 million households in the neighborhoods around the stores.

"That lit a fuse on the first day those coins hit the market," Diehl said. "Most of the stores I heard about sold out of their first 10-day to two-week supply in a matter of a few days. Some stores were out within a few hours. . . .

"It generated literally thousands of local newspaper, radio and television stories because of the lines forming at the Wal-Mart stores. And when the Wal-Mart stores ran out, people began calling their banks," Diehl said.

By Feb. 11, two weeks after the first coins were in circulation, the Mint received 12,600 orders from banks around the country, he said.

Diehl had sought a retail partner as a way to get around the banking community's skepticism toward a new dollar coin. The banks, after all, had been stuck with thousands of Susan B. Anthony dollars piled up in their vaults for years.

His maneuver did not please smaller banks, which could not respond to customer demand, and the Mint set up a program to ship the coin directly to them. "We think it will wind up being a big success for the monetary system," said John Hall, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company