OCTOBER 6
2017•American Legion Centennial Coin Program Becomes Law
2021•North Carolina American Innovation $1 Announced
2026•2026 Proof Set Released
The American Legion Centennial Commemorative Coin Program Becomes Law
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On October 6, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed Public Law 115-65, the American Legion 100th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act. The law ordered the United States Treasury to create a three-coin commemorative program for 2019 honoring the centennial of one of the nation’s most influential veterans organizations.
The legislation authorized a $5 gold coin, a silver dollar, and a clad half dollar in both proof and uncirculated finishes. It also established maximum mintages and surcharges that could ultimately benefit American Legion programs supporting veterans, members of the Armed Forces, and other purposes specified by the law.
Nothing went on sale on October 6, 2017. No final coin design yet existed. But this was the date the future coins acquired legal authority to exist.
Public Law 115-65
The enrolled law is unusually clear about its purpose.
Congress directed the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins “in recognition and celebration of the 100th anniversary of The American Legion.”
The measure originated as H.R. 2519 in the 115th Congress.
Its enactment on October 6 transformed a legislative proposal into a federal coinage program scheduled for the Legion’s centennial year of 2019.
Modern U.S. commemorative coins are not created simply because the Mint decides that a subject deserves one.
Congress authorizes individual commemorative programs by law.
The legislation normally specifies the subject, denominations, maximum quantities, period of issue, required inscriptions, surcharge structure, and recipient organization.
The Mint then carries out the program within those statutory boundaries.
October 6 was therefore the legal foundation for everything collectors would see two years later.
The American Legion Was Approaching 100
The timing was deliberate.
The American Legion was founded in Paris, France, on March 15, 1919, by members of the American Expeditionary Force following World War I.
The organization grew rapidly as veterans returned to civilian life and sought a national voice on issues affecting former service members and their communities.
Congress granted the Legion a federal charter on September 16, 1919.
By the time the commemorative legislation became law in 2017, the organization was preparing for its centennial.
Public Law 115-65 did more than authorize coins.
Its findings created a concise congressional history of the organization.
Congress cited the Legion’s founding in Paris, its federal charter, its service to veterans, and its role in major public-policy efforts.
Among the accomplishments highlighted was the Legion’s support for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—the original GI Bill.
The law also looked ahead to the Legion’s centennial events in 2018 and 2019.
The act authorized three different commemorative denominations.
First was a $5 gold coin.
Second was a silver dollar.
Third was a copper-nickel clad half dollar.
This three-denomination structure had become familiar in modern U.S. commemorative programs because it allowed collectors to participate at several price levels while giving designers three separate canvases on which to tell the program’s story.
The $5 Gold Coin
Congress authorized no more than 50,000 American Legion $5 gold coins.
The law specified a weight of 8.359 grams, a diameter of 0.850 inch, and the traditional commemorative $5 gold composition requirements then used by the Mint.
The eventual coins were struck at West Point.
Both proof and uncirculated versions were produced.
The relatively low 50,000-coin ceiling reflected the smaller collector market and higher intrinsic cost of modern gold commemoratives.
The legislation authorized as many as 400,000 silver dollars.
The silver dollar historically occupies the center of many modern commemorative programs.
It provides a large enough surface for detailed designs while remaining more affordable than gold.
The American Legion dollars were eventually struck at Philadelphia in proof and uncirculated finishes.
By 2019 the Mint produced them in 99.9 percent silver.
Congress permitted the largest quantity in the half-dollar denomination: up to 750,000 pieces.
The clad half dollar gave collectors the least expensive individual coin in the program.
Proof examples were eventually struck at San Francisco, while uncirculated examples came from Denver.
Like the gold and silver coins, the half dollar carried designs specifically created for the American Legion centennial rather than simply modifying a circulating coin.
Taken together, the statutory ceilings allowed as many as 1.2 million commemorative coins:
50,000 gold $5 pieces, 400,000 silver dollars, and 750,000 clad half dollars.
Authorization did not mean that all 1.2 million would actually be struck.
Modern commemoratives are generally produced in response to demand up to their legal limits.
Final sales were far below the maximums, an important distinction between a congressionally authorized ceiling and actual collector demand.
The Surcharge System
The law also imposed surcharges above the normal production and distribution cost of each coin.
Each $5 gold coin carried a $35 surcharge.
Each silver dollar carried a $10 surcharge.
Each clad half dollar carried a $5 surcharge.
Subject to the statutory conditions governing commemorative surcharges, proceeds were authorized for payment to the American Legion to support its programs for veterans, members of the Armed Forces, and other purposes specified in the act.
This structure is a distinctive feature of the modern U.S. commemorative program.
The coins serve two functions simultaneously.
They commemorate an event, organization, place, or person through federal coinage, and they can raise money for an authorized recipient through surcharges paid by collectors.
Congress has used this model for museums, memorials, historic preservation, Olympic organizations, military institutions, and other national causes.
The American Legion program placed veterans services within that tradition.
Congress did not dictate every artistic detail.
Instead, it required that the designs be emblematic of the American Legion’s 100th anniversary.
The coins also had to carry the familiar statutory inscriptions LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and E PLURIBUS UNUM.
The Secretary of the Treasury would select the final designs after consultation with the American Legion and review by the Commission of Fine Arts and Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
This left room for a full federal design process after enactment.
From Law to Art
That process unfolded during 2018.
Artists from the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program and medallic staff developed proposals for all three denominations.
The final designs were unveiled publicly on August 29, 2018, during the American Legion’s national convention in Minneapolis.
By then, the abstract requirements written into the October 2017 law had become six finished obverse-and-reverse designs.
The eventual $5 gold obverse, designed by Chris Costello and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill, commemorated the Legion’s birth in 1919.
Its imagery incorporated the outer geometric rim of the American Legion emblem, the Eiffel Tower, and a V for victory.
The combination linked the organization directly to Paris and the aftermath of World War I.
The reverse, designed by Paul C. Balan and sculpted by Joseph Menna, depicted a soaring eagle beneath the Legion emblem.
Paul C. Balan designed the silver dollar obverse, which features the American Legion emblem with oak leaves and a lily.
Renata Gordon sculpted the design.
Patricia Lucas-Morris designed the reverse, sculpted by Michael Gaudioso.
It uses crossed American and American Legion flags, a fleur-de-lis, and the inscription 100 YEARS OF SERVICE.
The fleur-de-lis again evokes the Legion’s founding in France.
The clad half dollar took a different approach.
Richard Masters designed both sides.
The obverse shows two children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, with the girl wearing her grandfather’s old American Legion hat.
The inscription begins the phrase I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG…
The reverse, sculpted by Joseph Menna, completes the thought with an American flag seen from the children’s viewpoint and the continuation …OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The Program Became a Six-Coin Collection
Because every denomination was available in both proof and uncirculated finishes, collectors could pursue six basic coins.
The Mint also offered a three-coin proof set containing one proof example of each denomination.
Later, a special proof silver dollar and American Veterans silver medal set expanded the program further.
Thus, the 2017 legislation ultimately generated a much broader range of collector products than the three denominations alone might suggest.
The commemoratives reached collectors during the Legion’s centennial year.
The Mint’s March 20, 2019 release announcement offered individual proof and uncirculated gold, silver, and clad coins along with the three-coin proof set.
Introductory pricing was offered for a limited period.
The products remained part of the 2019 commemorative program rather than an ongoing coin series.
That limited calendar-year framework was another requirement rooted in the authorizing law.
The final numbers illustrate how dramatically actual demand can differ from congressional ceilings.
Mint historical sales data lists 129,450 total American Legion coins sold across the individual and set configurations, plus 12,925 other products associated with the program.
That is only a fraction of the 1.2 million coins Congress had authorized.
The difference does not mean the program failed legally; the law set maximums, not production quotas.
The silver dollar was the strongest-selling denomination.
Mint figures as of December 2019 recorded 76,890 silver dollars across product options.
The clad half-dollar total was 38,715, while the gold total was 13,845.
These figures reflect coins distributed both individually and through sets.
They show why the silver dollar has often been the central denomination of modern commemorative programs.
More Than $1 Million in Surcharges
The program also generated meaningful surcharge revenue.
The Mint’s fiscal-year 2019 annual report stated that through September 30 the American Legion commemorative program had produced $10.1 million in revenue and $1.2 million in surcharges.
The program continued through the end of calendar year 2019, so that fiscal-year figure was not the final lifetime total.
Still, it demonstrates the practical fundraising mechanism Congress had built into Public Law 115-65 two years earlier.
There are several legitimate dates that could be associated with these coins.
October 6, 2017 is the enactment date of the authorizing legislation.
August 29, 2018 is the date the Mint unveiled the final designs.
March 2019 belongs to the public sales launch during the centennial year.
These events should not be collapsed into one another.
For October 6, the historical event is specifically the creation of the program in federal law.
On October 6, 2017, a future set of American coins existed for the first time as a legal mandate.
Public Law 115-65 authorized the Treasury to strike gold, silver, and clad commemoratives honoring the 100th anniversary of the American Legion.
Congress established the denominations, maximum mintages, surcharge amounts, design framework, recipient organization, and 2019 issue period.
Artists and Mint officials would later turn those instructions into actual coins.
Collectors would later buy them. Surcharges would later support veterans programs.
But the chain began on October 6, when a bill became law and the American Legion’s centennial entered the official coinage history of the United States.
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