Recall Vote: Presidential Coin Set

Presidents Day has a bitter side for coin collectors this year, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Mint late last year to discontinue presidential $1 coin Historical Signature Sets amid low sales.

Although the Mint will continue to produce the proof coins for the $1 presidential-coin series and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will continue to sell all the president's portraits, collectors won't get it all in the fancy blue folder that includes the presidents' signatures.

According to the Mint, the George Washington set was the bestseller, with 16,443 sets sold. Then sales started to decline. Sets for Presidents Adams, Jefferson and Madison sold 9,284, 8,803 and 7,701 respectively. By the time the Mint got to James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, sales were in the mid-3,000 range.

That is when the item was voted out of office, leaving the ninth and shortest-serving president, William Henry Harrison, with no set.

"The decision to pare back the number of products was based on customer feedback and the sales figures for the various products," says , acting public-affairs director for the Mint.

The Mint decided to take an "up and down" inventory of all its products and determined it was best to trim 121 coin products at the end of 2008. Those 200-something products that remain account for more than 95% of the Mint's products sold during October 2007 and September 2008, said the U.S. Mint.

Collectors and Mint customers alike will debate whether the low sales for the latter sets in the series was a fair representation of interest -- given the turmoil in the credit markets and the peak holiday-related shopping period of the year.

Each set in the series -- for as long as it lasted -- featured a . . .

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