The 2004 Lewis & Clark Dollar: a relic of the journey, struck in silver

In May 1804, a few dozen men pushed a keelboat up the Missouri River and into a map that, for the young United States, was mostly blank. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led them. Two and a half years and roughly 8,000 miles later, the Corps of Discovery came back having crossed the continent to the Pacific and returned — one of the great feats of exploration in American history.

Two hundred years later, Congress wanted to mark it. In 1999 it passed the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial Commemorative Coin Act — Public Law 106-126 — and President Clinton signed it on December 6 of that year. The law told the Mint to strike up to 500,000 silver dollars to help fund the bicentennial. The coins arrived in 2004, two centuries after the keelboat left.

Commemoratives like this aren't pocket change. Congress authorizes them one program at a time, the Mint sells them directly to collectors for a few years, and a built-in surcharge — an extra fee folded into the price — funnels money to a cause tied to the subject. Here the surcharge was $10 a coin. By law, two-thirds went to the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council and one-third to the National Park Service. Buying the coin helped pay for the anniversary it celebrated.

The front — the obverse, the heads side — shows Lewis and Clark standing together against a river and foliage. Lewis holds his journal and rifle; Clark looks off into the distance. The dates 1804 and 1806 flank the pair, bracketing the years the expedition ran.

The back is where this coin gets clever. The reverse — the tails side — reproduces the back of the Jefferson Indian peace medal, an object first designed by Mint engraver John Reich. Peace medals were silver discs the United States gave to Native American leaders as tokens of friendship and diplomacy, and the Corps of Discovery carried a supply of them west to hand out as they went. So the coin doesn't just depict the journey — it copies a thing that was physically on it. Two feathers stand for the many Native cultures the expedition met, and seventeen stars mark the number of states in the Union in 1804.

Both sides were designed and sculpted by Donna Weaver, a Mint artist. The design was unveiled on January 18, 2003, at Monticello — Thomas Jefferson's home, fittingly, since it was Jefferson who sent the Corps of Discovery west in the first place.

This is a modern commemorative, so it doesn't carry the rarity of a 19th-century coin — every example was sold new to a collector, and none ever circulated. Roughly 494,000 of the authorized 500,000 sold, split between two finishes: about 142,000 uncirculated coins (the standard satiny strike) and about 352,000 proof coins (struck on polished dies for mirror fields and frosted devices). The proof is the more common of the two; the uncirculated is the scarcer.

The more interesting collectibles are the bundled sets. The Mint sold a "Coin and Currency Set" pairing the dollar with a 2004 Westward Journey Jefferson nickel, a 2004 Sacagawea dollar, a replica of a 1901 ten-dollar note, and supporting material — and a companion "Coin and Pouch Set." Both were capped at 50,000 and sold out in a week at $120. There's also a footnote collectors trade stories about: in 2007 the Mint issued refunds after it came to light that around 2,000 of the leather pouches had been sourced through a group, the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band, that the federal government did not recognize.

Because the whole run was struck at one mint in one year, condition is what separates one example from another. Top-grade pieces — flawless proofs, high-grade uncirculated coins — are where collector interest concentrates.