By Numismatic News January 08, 2010

The first dollar to arrive in 2010 will be the Native American dollar that features Sacagawea on the obverse and arrows and a Hiawatha Belt on the reverse.

It will officially make its appearance at a ceremony Jan. 25 at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, according to Tom Jurkowsky, public relations director of the U.S. Mint.

The event is tentative and few details were available at press time.

This is the second issue in the Native American series of dollar coins. The reverses change each year.

This year’s reverse design is based on the theme “Government – The Great Tree of Peace.” It shows the Hiawatha Belt with five arrows bound together, with the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, $1, “Haudenosaunee” and “Great Law of Peace.”

According to the Mint, the Hiawatha Belt is a visual record of the creation of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, with five symbols representing the five original Nations.

Following the Native American dollar release by about three weeks will be the Millard Fillmore dollar in February. It is the first of the four Presidential dollars to be released in 2010. A ceremony in Upstate New York is in the works.

The other three in order of release will be Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln. Collectors who cannot wait will have the opportunity in February to purchase all four designs in the four-coin Presidential dollar proof set in February. Price is not yet set, but the 2009 set was priced at $14.95.

For more information, visit the Mint’s Web site at www.usmint.gov.



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