When we talk about John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar coins, you’d be forgiven to think that we mean dollar coins with John Adams’ likeness minted between the years 1797 and 1801. That’s not really the case, however. As we know, the first US coins with a president’s portrait on them were the Lincoln Wheat cents first minted in 1909. Before that, it was considered a bad form to mint a president’s image on US currency as people didn’t want presidents to be idolized the way the British royalty is.
So, below we’ll take a look at what a John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar coin is, when it was minted if not at the turn of the 19th century, what is its value, and more.
What exactly is a John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar coin?
So, what are those John Adams 1797 to 1801 coins then? You may have heard of the Presidential Dollar series initiated by the US Mint in the early 2000s. These coins were minted both to be released in circulation as regular dollars as well as for collectors – just like any other coin. The basic purpose of all coins from the Presidential Dollar series was to commemorate past US presidents, both the ones that didn’t get to have their faces on a US coin and the ones that did – you can find quite a few of the other Presidential Dollars on Coin Value Checker too.
Additionally, as with any other series of coins, the other goal here was to raise some funds for the US Mint by selling the higher-quality proof versions of these presidential coins to collectors. So, in the span of several years, numerous US dollar coins with the portraits of different presidents were released in circulation and to collectors.
The John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar was released in 2007. Even though John Adams was the second US president, however, and there hadn’t been any dollar coins with his likeness before, these particular coins from the Presidential Dollar series aren’t valued quite as highly as some of the others. Let’s find out below.
John Adams 1797 to 1801 Coin Grading
Dollars from the Presidential Dollar series are graded and evaluated on the same principles as any other coin. The first thing to do is to assess their authenticity. This is usually easy as there aren’t very many counterfeits of coins from this series.
Next, it’s time to rate the visual quality and preservation of each coin, i.e. whether it’s been spared from the wear and tear of being into wide circulation or not. This is usually done with a visual inspection from a professional who will give the coin a grade between 1 and 70 on a scale such as the Sheldon coin grading scale. As you’d expect, the closer the grade is to 70, the higher the quality and detail of the piece.
Coins that have been used in wide circulation, even for just a while, will rarely have grades above 50 as coins tend to accumulate wear and tear pretty quickly. Such dollars will have a collector’s value equal to their face value of $1 as there is simply no reason why they’d cost more than that.
If a coin has been kept out of circulation, however – whether because it was kept by a collector or because it was a proof coin that was never meant to be released for wide circulation in the first place – such a coin can have a higher value.
In the case of John Adams 1797 to 1801 coins, their value chart today looks something like this:
| John Adams 1797 to 1801 Dollar Coin Value Chart | ||||
| Mint Mark | Good to Extremely Fine Grade (<MS 60) | Uncirculated MS 60 | Uncirculated MS 63 | Uncirculated MS 65 and above |
| John Adams P Mint Mark Dollar Coin | $1 | $3 | $6 | $12 to $20 and above |
| John Adams D Mint Mark Dollar Coin | $1 | $3 | $5 | $12 and above |
| John Adams S Mint Mark Proof Dollar Coin | n/a | n/a | $4 | $5 and above |
As you can see, this isn’t the type of coin that’d make a collector rich any time soon. The only way for this coin to cost anything over a few dollars, let alone over $100 is if it has any particularly unique and fascinating manufacturing errors which is the third step of evaluating coins – we’ll cover that below.
John Adams 1797 to 1801 Coin Specifications
- Category: Presidential Dollars (2007-2020)
- Mint: Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco,
- Philadelphia Mintage: 112,420,000
- Denver Mintage: 112,140,000
- San Francisco Mintage: 3,965,989
- Obverse Designers: Joel Iskowitz and Charles Vickers
- Reverse Designer: Don Everhart
- Composition: Manganese-Brass
- Weight: 8.07 grams
- Diameter: 26.5 mm
- Edge: Lettered
Regardless of which mint this coin was made in, its design is always the same. The obverse side features the portrait of John Adams facing partly to the right with his name spelled out above and the words “2nd President 1979-1801” written below. The reverse side, on the other hand, has the left-facing Statue of Liberty, the denomination of $1 under her torch, and the words “United States of America” on the sides.
The edge of the John Adams dollar also includes quite a lot as it’s lettered. So, the year of minting (2007), the mint mark, the legend, as well as the mottos “E Pluribus Unum” (From Many, One) and “In God We Trust” are all written on the edge of the coin rather than on the obverse or reverse sides.
Lists of John Adams 1797 to 1801 Coin Variants
As with most other US coins, both from the Presidential Dollar series and others, the John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar coin was minted by all three US Mints, with the coins made in San Francisco being proof coins not meant for wide circulation.
The only distinguishable difference between Denver-made and Philly-made John Adams dollars is the mint mark on the edge of these coins – “D” for the former and “P” for the latter. The proof coins made in San Francisco – with an “S” mint mark – are easier to tell apart, of course, because they are of a higher quality. As proof coins, they are also of much higher grade and higher average value too as they haven’t been used in wide circulation.
That average doesn’t mean that “S” coins are always more valuable than “D” and “P” coins, however. In fact, you may have noticed the trend in the chart above that high-grade “D” and “P” John Adams dollars are evaluated higher than the “S” proof coins. That’s because, while there are hundreds of millions of Denver- and Philly-made John Adams regular dollars, only a few of them have an uncirculated grade of MS 63 or higher. And the ones that do are much fewer than the proof coins minted in San Francisco, hence why they are more valuable.
John Adams 1797 to 1801 Coin Errors
As with any other coin, the presence of an occasional manufacturing error is both unavoidable with such a large production and also often quite valuable as errors make individual coins rare and unique. And, indeed, there are some interesting errors to be found in this series, as seen here. Some of the prime examples include:
1. Broadstruck error
This error occurs when the minting die strikes the coin improperly and flattens it more than it should. This results in a wider but thinner coin. The broadstruck error is actually rarer for the John Adams 1797 to 1801 dollar coin but it’s very valuable and it can bump up the value of these coins well into the hundreds of dollars.
2. Missing edge lettering error
This is another error that isn’t all that common for these coins. As the name implies, this happens when the edge lettering hasn’t been minted and is missing. This error is more common in other Presidential Dollar coins but here it can increase the coin’s value even more than a broadstruck error.
3. Double-edge lettering overlap error
The opposite of the above error happens when the edge lettering has been minted more than once and is now overlapping with itself. This is a more common mistake, especially in Denver and Philly dollars, but it is still highly valued.
In Conclusion
Even though the John Adams dollar coin isn’t as highly valued as some others in the Presidential Dollar series, it is still a nice collector’s item. Being new and quite numerous, these coins can’t be expected to have a much higher value than they do right now but some particularly interesting and uncirculated pieces can see their value rise substantially in the future.
