DECEMBER 21
2004•Benjamin Franklin Commemorative Coin Act Becomes Law
2020•George H.W. Bush Presidential $1
The Benjamin Franklin Commemorative Coin Act Becomes Law
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On December 21, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Benjamin Franklin Commemorative Coin Act into law, authorizing two United States silver dollars to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth. The legislation created one of the most historically rich modern U.S. commemorative programs, honoring Franklin not with a single coin but with two different portraits of his extraordinary life.
The program would ultimately produce a “Scientist” silver dollar showing a younger Franklin and a “Founding Father” dollar depicting him later in life. Together they commemorated a printer, scientist, diplomat, inventor, statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most recognizable figures in American history.
For numismatists, Franklin also carried a special connection to American money. His writings included influential observations about paper currency and counterfeiting, his image had appeared on U.S. currency, and from 1948 through 1963 his portrait had been featured on the circulating Franklin half dollar.
Benjamin Franklin Was More Than a Founding Father
Few Americans have careers as difficult to summarize as Benjamin Franklin's.
Born in Boston on January 17, 1706, Franklin became a printer, publisher, writer, scientist, inventor, civic organizer, diplomat, and statesman.
He helped shape both the intellectual culture and political institutions of the emerging United States.
The year 2006 would mark the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth.
Institutions across the country prepared exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and public events.
A federal commemorative coin program offered a permanent numismatic tribute to the anniversary.
Congressional legislation proposed two silver dollars rather than a single design.
That decision reflected the difficulty of representing Franklin's enormous career on one coin.
One design could emphasize science and intellectual achievement.
The other could emphasize his role in the founding of the United States.
The Benjamin Franklin Commemorative Coin Act
The legislation became Public Law 108-464.
President George W. Bush signed it on December 21, 2004.
The law authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to mint and issue two different one-dollar silver coins during 2006.
Each design had a maximum authorized mintage of 250,000 pieces.
The two-coin structure was central to the program.
Franklin's identity as a scientist and his identity as a statesman were both fundamental to his historical importance.
Instead of forcing those roles into one crowded composition, Congress authorized separate designs.
The first coin became popularly known as the Benjamin Franklin “Scientist” silver dollar.
Its obverse portrays a younger Franklin.
The reverse uses imagery associated with his famous experiments with electricity.
The design presents Franklin as a curious investigator of the natural world.
Franklin's experiments with electricity made him internationally famous long before the American Revolution.
His work helped demonstrate relationships among lightning, electricity, and electrical charge.
The legendary kite experiment became one of the most recognizable episodes in American scientific history.
The Scientist dollar was unusual because it celebrated intellectual inquiry as a central part of the national story.
American commemoratives often focus on wars, political anniversaries, monuments, or famous leaders.
Franklin's coin gave scientific experimentation a prominent place.
The second coin depicts an older Franklin.
Its theme centers on his contributions to American independence and nation-building.
The reverse evokes the Continental Congress and Franklin's participation in the founding era.
Franklin's diplomatic achievements were essential to the American Revolution.
His work in France helped secure French support for the American cause.
That alliance supplied military, naval, financial, and diplomatic assistance critical to American victory.
Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence.
He also signed the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War and participated in the Constitutional Convention.
His life connected colonial America, the Revolution, and the creation of the federal government.
Why Silver Dollars?
The modern commemorative silver dollar had become a standard format for major historical anniversaries.
Its relatively large diameter gave artists room for detailed portraiture and symbolic reverses.
Its precious-metal composition also distinguished it from ordinary circulating coins.
The Franklin dollars followed the statutory specifications used for modern commemorative silver dollars.
They contained 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper, with a weight and diameter derived from the traditional U.S. silver-dollar standard.
Both Proof and Uncirculated versions would be offered to collectors.
Congress authorized no more than 250,000 coins of each design.
That meant the combined program could not exceed 500,000 silver dollars.
The limit applied across the available finishes for each design.
The law provided for surcharges from coin sales to benefit the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
The institution is one of America's best-known science museums and educational centers.
Its connection to Franklin made it a natural beneficiary of the tercentenary program.
Although born in Boston, Franklin became inseparable from Philadelphia.
He built his printing business there, conducted civic projects there, performed scientific work there, and became one of Pennsylvania's most important public figures.
Philadelphia was also the birthplace of the United States Mint.
Franklin had direct experience with money long before the federal Mint existed.
As a printer, he produced colonial paper currency.
He understood the practical problem of counterfeiting and experimented with printing methods intended to make notes more difficult to imitate.
Franklin helped develop techniques using impressions of leaves to create complex patterns on colonial currency.
The fine natural structures were difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce accurately.
In that sense, Franklin's scientific curiosity and printing expertise intersected directly with monetary security.
Franklin Defended Paper Money
He also wrote about the economic role of paper currency in the colonies.
His arguments demonstrated an unusually sophisticated interest in monetary policy for a printer and public intellectual.
That connection makes a federal coin tribute especially appropriate.
Franklin's most famous numismatic appearance before 2006 was the Franklin half dollar.
Introduced in 1948, the coin featured a portrait by Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock.
The reverse showed the Liberty Bell with a small eagle.
The Franklin half dollar was notable because Franklin had never served as president.
American circulating portrait coinage often honored presidents or national leaders closely associated with the presidency.
Franklin's achievements were considered important enough to transcend that convention.
The series lasted only 16 years.
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Congress and the Treasury moved rapidly to place Kennedy's portrait on the half dollar.
The Kennedy half dollar debuted in 1964, ending the Franklin series.
The 2006 commemorative program therefore returned Franklin to United States coinage more than four decades after his circulating half dollar disappeared.
This time the Mint could tell a more complex story through two designs.
After the December 2004 authorization, the Mint began the process of developing artwork.
Modern commemorative design involves multiple stages, including concept development, sculptural modeling, review by advisory bodies, Treasury approval, die preparation, and production testing.
The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee evaluates proposed coin and medal designs and provides recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury.
The Commission of Fine Arts also reviews many federal coin designs.
The process attempts to balance historical accuracy, artistic quality, legal inscriptions, and manufacturability.
The Scientist coin's younger Franklin separates it visually from the familiar elderly statesman found in many portraits.
That choice reinforces the coin's theme.
This is Franklin as experimenter and investigator rather than simply Franklin as elder Founding Father.
The Founding Father Obverse
The second dollar presents the mature Franklin recognizable from famous eighteenth-century portraits.
The contrast between the two coins creates a miniature biography.
Collectors viewing the pair see the passage of time across Franklin's face.
Neither coin was intended to stand entirely alone conceptually.
Together they communicate the breadth of Franklin's life.
Science and statecraft were not separate careers for him; they reflected the same Enlightenment belief in reason, experimentation, practical improvement, and public service.
The United States Mint opened sales for the Benjamin Franklin commemorative coins in January 2006, coinciding closely with the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth.
Collectors could purchase Proof and Uncirculated versions of both designs.
Franklin's popularity, the attractive designs, and the two-coin concept generated substantial collector interest.
The program became one of the notable modern commemorative issues of the decade.
Its limited mintages also gave buyers an incentive to order early.
Proof coins were manufactured with specially prepared dies and planchets to produce mirrored fields and frosted design elements.
Uncirculated commemoratives used a different finish intended to retain the appearance of a high-quality Mint State coin.
Many collectors acquired one of each finish or complete four-coin combinations.
Congressional commemorative programs often include surcharges intended for nonprofit organizations connected with the subject.
The Franklin program directed those funds toward educational purposes associated with the Franklin Institute.
That linked the coin's scientific theme with continuing science education.
The December 2004 law gave the Mint more than a year to develop the 2006 coins.
That was far more time than the extraordinary 1921 Peace Dollar schedule, when a design competition and production occurred within weeks.
The longer timeline allowed for extensive artistic and advisory review.
Why the Signing Date Matters
A commemorative coin does not begin when collectors first purchase it.
It begins legally when Congress and the president authorize the program.
December 21, 2004 is therefore the foundational date for the Franklin dollars.
Without Public Law 108-464, the Mint had no authority to issue them.
The Constitution grants Congress power to coin money and regulate its value.
Modern commemorative programs are a direct expression of that authority.
Congress defines the subject, denomination, metal, maximum mintage, period of issue, and often the organizations receiving surcharges.
Once legislation is enacted, the Mint turns statutory language into physical objects.
Artists interpret the theme.
Engineers ensure the designs can be struck.
Production facilities manufacture the coins.
Marketing and distribution make them available to collectors.
The transformation is one of the fascinating aspects of commemorative coinage.
On December 21, 2004, the Franklin program existed as legislation.
In 2006, that legal text became hundreds of thousands of silver objects carrying Franklin's image.
Collectors could literally hold the result of an act of Congress.
Commemorative coins tell us what a particular generation chooses to remember.
The Franklin program emphasized science and founding-era statecraft.
Those choices reveal how Americans in the early twenty-first century interpreted Franklin's legacy.
Few historical Americans connect to money in as many ways.
Franklin printed colonial currency.
He experimented with anti-counterfeiting techniques.
He wrote about paper money.
His portrait appeared on federal currency.
He appeared on a circulating half dollar and later on two commemorative silver dollars.
Franklin's portrait is also instantly recognizable on the United States $100 Federal Reserve note.
Like his half dollar, the note honors a non-president.
His presence on one of America's most prominent denominations reflects his exceptional status in national memory.
Coins and Currency Tell Different Franklin Stories
The $100 note emphasizes Franklin as a Founding Father.
The 1948–1963 half dollar pairs him with the Liberty Bell.
The 2006 silver dollars broaden the story to include his scientific career.
Together these objects form an unusual monetary biography.
A Franklin-focused collection could include colonial notes he printed, Franklin half dollars, modern $100-note types, medals, and the two 2006 commemorative dollars.
That makes Franklin an unusually rich subject for crossover collecting between coins, paper money, medals, and early American financial history.
The two 2006 dollars succeed because they resist reducing Franklin to one achievement.
The young experimenter and elderly statesman belong to the same life.
The program acknowledges that the American founding was shaped not only by politics but also by Enlightenment science, printing, communication, and practical invention.
Collectors naturally associate the Franklin dollars with 2006 because that is the date on the coins.
But their legal history began earlier.
December 21, 2004 was the moment presidential signature converted a congressional proposal into federal coinage law.
On December 21, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Benjamin Franklin Commemorative Coin Act.
The law authorized two silver dollars for Franklin's 300th birthday, with maximum mintages of 250,000 coins per design.
One would celebrate Franklin the scientist.
The other would honor Franklin the Founding Father.
The program returned Franklin to United States coinage decades after the end of his circulating half dollar and connected modern collectors with a man whose relationship to American money stretched back to colonial currency printing itself.
When the coins appeared in 2006, they were the physical result of the decision made on December 21.
A presidential signature had started the process that turned Benjamin Franklin's extraordinary life into two pieces of American silver.
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