As many are aware, when Congress approves a new coin program or new dollar denomination for example. It also takes an act of Congress to stop a coin's minting. With that being said, why did the Mint stop producing Susan B. Anthony dollars after 1981 if Congress didn't tell them to? Also, why did they mint them again in 1999? The answers I've heard were that the Mint needed to exhaust their supplies of previous years of Susan B.'s. Well, if that's the case, what about the Sagagewea's. We know that many were sent to Central America. But, still they keep minting this dollar coin and i for the years 1982-1999, it made no sense for them to stop production unless Congress specifically told them not to. Any ideas?
Suspending mintage because of low/no demand is one thing. Permanently ending the mintage of a specific coin is something else entirely.
For starters it does NOT take and act of Congress to stop minting a coin. If there is no demand and not requests for the coin from the Fed they can stop making them. But the AUTHORIZATION to strike them continues unless it is specifically ended. That was why there was no need for new authorization to strike the 1999 SBA dollars. The stockpile ran low and the Fed was still ordering dollars (about 5 million a month, 60 million a year), and the authorization for the Sac did not allow them before Jan 1, 2000 so they fell back on the existing authorization for the SBA and we got the 99-P and D coins. On the Sac dollars 2002 - 2007 there was no demand from the Fed, but there was demand from collectors so the mint used their authorization to strike enough coins to satisfy collector demand. During the 1982 - 1999 period the mint/government still had not realized that the collector was a cash cow ready for milking. Their view of us at the time was as more of nuisance to be barely tolerated. (Hence the elimination of the production of 1982 and 83 mint sets as a "cost savings" for the budget even though the sale of mint sets resulted in a much larger return to the budget then stopping them saved. The money they could get from collectors was not even considered.) We did have to have new authorization for the 2008 Sac because due to an oversight the law authorizing the change in the edge of the President dollars accidently removed the authorization for the Sac dollar as well until the edge change went into effect in 2009. So new legislation had to be passed so the 2008 Sac dollars that had alredy been struck could be sold to collectors and issued. (As a really odd quirk the same law that eliminated the 2008 Sacs also eliminated the authorization for the 2007 Sac dollars that had already been sold and issued. But I guess since there had been authorization when they were actually issued I guess they are OK.)