--- title: U.S. Treasury Starts Selling $1 Gold-Colored Trump Coins... for More Than $1 description: The U.S. Mint's new Trump $1 coin is already selling for more than face value. Here's what collectors need to know. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 349 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology editors: - name: Katherine Peach role: Associate Editor url: https://money.com/author/katherine-peach/ bio: Katherine Peach is an associate editor with a focus on news and email at Money. She didn’t always intend to write about money. She’s a classically trained pianist who dreamed of becoming an archaeologist. However, in 2007 Katherine began working in financial publishing as an editor for Agora Inc. (Apparently, unearthing ideas about improving your personal finances isn’t such a bad career alternative!) Katherine’s writing and editing work has been featured in Investing Daily, Clever, Investor Junkie, The Palm Beach Letter, Truth & Plenty, Independence Monthly, NICHE, AmericanStyle, AntiqueWeek, Millennial Money, Money Done Right, TheStreet, Sure Dividend and many others. Katherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient Studies with concentrations in Archaeology and Ancient Languages and a minor in Literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. education: University of Maryland, Baltimore County at_money_since: 2025 articles: 14 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes published: '2026-09-03T20:38:38.000Z' modified: '2026-09-03T20:38:38.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - News word_count: 436 canonical: https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![trump coin and bills](https://img.money.com/2026/09/News-Trump-coin.jpg) On Wednesday, the U.S. Mint began selling commemorative $1 coins with President Donald J. Trump’s portrait on them — for collectors willing to pay a pretty penny. Sold for roughly 150% to 250% of their nominal value, the coins feature Trump’s face on the obverse or “heads” side, and the presidential seal on the reverse or “tails” side. Both sides of the coin have inscriptions that commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary this year. Despite the gold hue, there isn’t any [real gold](https://money.com/why-invest-in-gold/) in them; they’re primarily copper with small amounts of zinc, manganese and nickel. Although legal tender for $1, the Mint’s [website](https://www.usmint.gov/semiquincentennial-president-donald-j-trump-2026-1-coin-rolls-bags-MASTER_SEMIQDJT.html) sold the coins in rolls or bags of 25 for $61 or 100 for $154.50. That's $2.44 or $1.55 per coin, respectively. That's a relative bargain compared to the $5 price per coin at vending machines in the Mint's Washington, D.C., store, according to [*The Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/02/us-mint-puts-golden-1-coin-with-trumps-image-into-circulation/). [Collectors](https://money.com/how-to-use-leftover-foreign-coins/) didn’t seem to mind the markup, though: On Thursday, the coins were “currently unavailable” online, mere hours after going on sale, with no indication if or when they might be restocked. ## Making 'cents' of the legal controversy Perhaps that’s because the gold Trump $1 coin breaks with historical — if not legal — precedent. Legislation dating from the 19th century prohibits the depiction of living people — presidents included — on U.S. currency, while 2005 legislation to produce commemorative $1 presidential coins stipulated that a former president could not appear on one until at least two years after death. A bipartisan congressional committee that oversees coin designs did not approve a gold Trump coin. “If they make it without our review, it will be illegal,” committee member Donald Scarinci (D-N.Y.) told [*The Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/05/democrats-urge-halt-24-karat-gold-coin-with-trumps-image/) in June, in response to a proposal for a 24-karat gold coin bearing Trump's image. The Treasury Department, however, said the coin was legal under a 2020 law regulating semiquincentennial commemorative coins. Officials argued that the Trump coin falls under the law’s permitted depiction of “designs emblematic of the United States Semiquincentennial.” In an interview with [Fox News](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5eFJFsEbX8) in July, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said there was precedent for putting a sitting president on a coin. For the nation’s 150th anniversary, a commemorative half-dollar coin depicting Calvin Coolidge and George Washington was produced, although most of the 1 million minted were returned to the Mint and melted down. The country’s 250th anniversary has been a bonanza for coin collectors, with the Mint rolling out a number of commemorative designs. These included a noncirculating, special-edition [penny](https://money.com/penny-return-250th-anniversary/), notable for being produced after the Mint [stopped](https://money.com/get-rid-of-pennies/) making pennies for general circulation last year. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "News", "item": "https://money.com/tag/news/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "U.S. Treasury Starts Selling $1 Gold-Colored Trump Coins... for More Than $1" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/", "name": "U.S. Treasury Starts Selling $1 Gold-Colored Trump Coins... for More Than $1", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2026-09-03T20:38:38.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/trump-coin-us-mint-price-collectors/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2026-09-03T20:38:38.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "U.S. Treasury Starts Selling $1 Gold-Colored Trump Coins... for More Than $1", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2026/09/News-Trump-coin.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Trump-coin" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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