Posted by
voice_of_reason on Monday, July 30, 2007 12:34:28 PM
From "Urbanlegends.about.com"
New Dollar Coin Omits 'In God We Trust'
Netlore Archive: Email rumor claims the motto 'In God We Trust' was omitted from the new one-dollar U.S. coin issued in February 2007
Description: Email flier
Circulating since: February 2007
Status: Partly true
Analysis: See below
Email example contributed by George S., 27 February 2007:
This new coin came out this month
The U.S. Mint hopes the redesigned $1 coin will win acceptance with consumers.
It does not have In God We Trust on it. Another way of leaving God out.
Send this on and let consumers decide if it will win acceptance or not.
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Comments: (Updated) According to the U.S. Mint, an unknown number of new one-dollar George Washington coins (at least 50,000 of them, by one estimate) were erroneously struck without the motto "In God We Trust" and found their way into the batch of 300 million issued on February 15, 2007. A rumor (see above) began circulating soon afterward to the effect that the religious slogan, which has been a standard inscription on U.S. coins since 1938 and the national motto since 1956, was intentionally omitted from the entire run of one-dollar coins. The rumor is false, though it remains unclear whether it was inspired by the minting error or the fact that the newly designed coin, properly manufactured, bears the inscription "In God We Trust" on its outer edge instead of its face, per the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005:
(10) In order to revitalize the design of United States coinage and return circulating coinage to its position as not only a necessary means of exchange in commerce, but also as an object of aesthetic beauty in its own right, it is appropriate to move many of the mottos and emblems, the inscription of the year, and the so-called "mint marks" that currently appear on the 2 faces of each circulating coin to the edge of the coin, which would allow larger and more dramatic artwork on the coins reminiscent of the so-called "Golden Age of Coinage" in the United States...
About.com Coins Guide Susan Headley has been following the minting snafu since it was first discovered by collectors in February 2007 and sums it all up in her
Washington Dollar Plain Edge Coins FAQ.