1999 Secret SBA Dollar Set - PDP

On this day in history, 1873, Susan B. Anthony was tried, sentenced, and fined $100 by the U.S. Supreme Court after being found guilty of violating a Federal Law. The Law in question that she broke? She voted in that year's federal government elections!

It was not until almost fifty years later on June 4, 1919, that Congress, by joint resolution, approved the woman's suffrage amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. Sixty years later the woman at the forefront of the Woman's Rights movement, Susan B. Anthony, was finally featured as the first historical woman to appear on a circulating United States coin.

In 1979, the US Mint unveiled its first mini-dollar, the Susan B Anthony. It was released with great fanfare and lofty expectations. It was also the first time in US History that the US Mint used the reverse design from a prior release... it has the Apollo reverse design borrowed from the Eisenhower Dollar.

But the actual everyday use was its down fall; it was mistaken for a quarter again and again, resulting in being pulled from circulation for good soon after it was created. In addition, as interest faded fast, the Mint suspended production due to an excess of inventory at the mint. By 1981, mintage of the Susan B. Anthony dollar was stopped for good - or so we thought!

As the hoards of Susan B. Anthony dollars struck 20 years earlier finally dwindled, one final year of Susan B. Anthony Dollars were approved and produced. This 18 year span represented the longest gap between two dates of the same series in the history of U.S. coinage.

Traditionally, the US Mint takes one uncirculated coin of every issue it makes for circulation and places them into the Official US Mint Set, creating a special collector version, however, neither of the sets in 1999 had the Susan B. Anthony.

Three coins were made that year: an uncirculated version from both the Philadelphia & Denver Mints, and a Philadelphia Mint Collector's Proof. The Mint Collectors Proof was the only Philadelphia Mint proof struck in the Susan B Anthony program - the 79, 80 and 81 Proofs were struck at the San Francisco Mint. It was also the first "P" mint proof of a circulating coin since 1964!