2023 S Sacagawea Proof Dollar Coin
The Native American $1 Coin program honors and recognizes
the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native
Americans.
The 2023 Native American $1 Coin obverse (heads)
design retains a portrait of Sacagawea carrying her infant son, Jean-Baptiste.
The reverse (tails) design features Maria Tallchief
and four additional dancers in balletic pose.
The Native American $1 Coin Program was established to honor
and recognize the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual
Native Americans to the history and development of the United States.
For 2023, the obverse (heads) design continues to
feature a portrait of the central figure of Sacagawea, carrying her infant son,
Jean-Baptiste. Inscriptions are “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.” The coins
continue to retain their distinctive edge lettering and golden color.
The Sacagawea Golden Dollar (now referred to as the Native
American $1 Coin) was first released in 2000. Since 2009, a new reverse (tails)
design with an image emblematic of one important Native American or Native
American contribution.
The 2023 reverse design features Maria Tallchief in
balletic pose. Tallchief was America’s first major prima ballerina, and she and
her husband, George Balanchine, transformed American classical ballet. In
addition to Tallchief, four other American Indian ballerinas from Oklahoma
achieved international recognition in the 20th century, including her younger
sister Marjorie Tallchief, Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, and Moscelyne
Larkin. Celebrated as the “Five Moons,” their legacy of achievement and
inclusion continues to influence ballet today. A nod to the Five Moons is
presented in the lunar motif, while the four ballerinas in the background are
symbolic of both Tallchief’s American Indian ballerina contemporaries and the
generations of dancers they inspired. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,”
“MARIA TALLCHIEF,” “$1,” and “AMERICAN INDIANS IN BALLET.”
The year of minting, mint mark, and inscription “E PLURIBUS
UNUM” are incused on the edge of the coins.
Coin Specification
Composition: Manganese-Brass
Weight: 8.0700g
Diameter: 26.5mm
Edge: Plain
Mint and Mint Mark: “S” San Francisco