WASHINGTON – The United States Mint announced today that the 2007 United States Mint Silver Proof SetTM will be released Thursday, August 23, 2007, at 12:00 noon (ET) The 2007 United States Mint Silver Proof Set, priced at $44.95, features proof versions of the five quarters issued in the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters® Program, the Kennedy half-dollar, and the Roosevelt dime, all composed of 90 percent silver. The set also includes proof versions of the Golden Dollar featuring Sacagawea, the Jefferson 5-cent coin (nickel), the Lincoln one-cent coin, and for the first time, the new Presidential $1 Coins honoring the first four Presidents of the United States.

Small, golden and bearing the faces of our country’s former presidents, the coins in the U.S. Mint’s new $1 coin series are only a little larger than a quarter. While the U.S. Mint released the coins to educate Americans on our country’s presidential history — only 7 percent of Americans can name the first four presidents — the lesson may go unheeded as many have no interest in the new series. “I can’t say that I care one way or another about the coins,” said Anita Richards. “I don’t usually carry around a lot of change.” Richards is one of many local residents who either knew little about the new $1 coin series or were uninterested.

Woo-hoo! Start lining up at the mint, boys and girls, because this is the thing that’s finally going to get you into coin collecting: The Thomas Jefferson dollar coin is being released! Okay, so you can’t actually line up at the mint. (I guess.) The coin will go into circulation tomorrow, and you can get it at a bank. You can also get it at the Jefferson Memorial today — where the mint director will be quizzing people about Thomas Jefferson and selling the dollar coins for, um, $1 — and buy it on the mint website tomorrow. Using dollar coins would save money for the government, but since they’d just waste it on the Strategic National Eggplant Surplus or something, nobody uses ‘em. Also, they’re heavy.