Susan B. Anthony

The Susan B. Anthony Dollar was minted between 1979 and 1981, and again in 1999. It depicts women's suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, vending machines (especially transit and postal machines) began to take higher denomination notes, when previously they had been effectively limited to dollar notes. While change could be given in quarters and smaller coins, more and more such machines began to give change in dollar coins. This led to an increased call on the Treasury's supply. By 1998, the Treasury's stock of dollar coins was near exhaustion. The Mint lacked the legal authority to change the design of the coin, and it was not deemed possible to release the new Sacagawea dollar earlier than 2000. Accordingly, after the longest hiatus for the same design of a circulating coin in U.S. history (one year longer than for the Morgan silver dollar), the coin was restruck in 1999.