2000 Cheerios Dollar - 2000 Prototype Golden (Sacagawea) Dollar, FS-902

by: Dr. Ron Brown   |   Saturday, August 21, 2021   |   0 Comments

2000 Prototype Golden (Sacagawea) Dollar, FS-902

By Dr. Ron Brown

With rare exemption, I always write about coins I own. This article is no exception and from my ownership, I observed and learned a few things that I feel should be said again about this rare and very desirable variety.

Business Strike Reverse: note smooth appearance of neck and tail    Prototype Reverse: note feather texture of neck, wings and tail

The year 2000 – the New Millennium was planned with much fanfare.  If you recall there were the dooms day prognosticators who foretold of the end of the world using the Y2K title to warn. Do you recall the computer tech guys who said all our systems would crash due to the computers and their programs only using two digit year designators and the New Year 2000 was never planned for? Even our appliances were supposed to fail. In Health Care, my profession, health departments around the country was forcing the industry to plan for major outages and make alternative plans and file a strategic plan with them. With rare exception all the planning and concern resulted in “Much to Do about Nothing”- a real a waste of money and precious time.

But one big change did realize – the United States Mint introduced a New Golden Dollar with the goal of the American populace embracing it over the old paper dollar bill. Great effort was put into place to make this a reality. TV ads ran, promotional items were issued, all with the goal of the public to embrace these new coins. By early January 2000, this being before they were available anywhere else, Walmart, Sam’s Club and the General Mills partnered with the U.S. Mints promotion and had the coins for distribution. Federal Reserve Banks did not begin shipping the coins until January 18, 2000. However this was not the only promotion as the mint partnered with many large retailers to issue the new “Golden Dollars” in change. Within this promotion, General Mills placed one Lincoln cent in every box of Cheerios and a Sacagawea dollar and cent inside every 2,000th box of the same. One detail not often mentioned is that in every 4,400^th box, there was a certificate redeemable for $100 in the New Golden Dollar. I have always wondered if some of these might have been of the prototype variety.  An excerpt of the Mints press release is here below:

U.S. MINT'S FIRST MILLENNIUM COINS AVAILABLE INSIDE BOXES OF CHEERIOS

First Year 2000 Pennies and Dollar Coins in All Six Cheerios Brands This Week
Minneapolis, January 5, 2000 - The Millennium will arrive in mint condition - literally! Ten million newly minted Millennium Pennies - the first Lincoln cents stamped with the year 2000 - will be distributed inside boxes of all six varieties of Cheerios. The 10 million cereal boxes containing the Millennium Penny will appear on store shelves across the United States beginning this week.
Since general circulation of these coins is not expected to begin until February, this historic offer gives Americans a chance to get the new coins before they're widely available.
In addition to the penny, every 2,000th participating box in the Cheerios franchise will include one of the brand new, highly anticipated one-dollar gold-colored coins - the Golden Dollar - featuring the image of Native American heroine Sacagewea. Plus, every 4,400th box will contain a $100 prize in the form of a special certificate redeemable for 100 of the new Golden Dollars.

With the late discovery in 2005 of this Sacagawea variety, FS-902 - today not many collectors recall these cereal boxes

During the delivery of the coins, being sealed by the mint on the cards – obverse side up, any difference would not have been noticed on the reverse or down side. The inserted coins dated 2000 were placed on a card, obverse side up and shrink-wrapped – thus in keeping with the promotion of the year 2000 which the coins all showed. For some reason, the black card decorated with images of 2000-dated cents and dollar coins carry the “S” mint mark used on proof coins which neither of these coins would have. The packaging was titled “Cheerios”, and this moniker has been attached to the coins ever since.

Close-up of some of my coins

It was then in 2005 that Tom Delorey noticed the reverse was not like the general circulating dollars but in fact had more detail, especially in the tail feathers of the eagle.

Business strike 2000 reverse tail detail

Prototype 2000 FS-902 tail detail

The history of this coin starts late October in 1999 when designer (Tom Rogers), of the already finished reverse dies, reports that a design change was recommended to make the tail feathers and the head/neck area on the Bald Eagle look white by reducing the reverse surface detail in those areas giving it a smooth lighter appearance – more representative of the white head and tail of the Bald Eagle. Mind you, the mint at this time had already produced coins for the General Mills promotion – but likely not all. With the change, all subsequent business strike dollars thereafter were produced with this modified reverse die, but the already planned 5500 coins to be supplied to General Mills were already in the pipeline.

NGC in April 2008 was then to certify a coin in MS67, calling it a pattern 2000-P Sacagawea Dollar struck from dies made with experimental hubs. Experimental is not exactly  right - rather these were early hubs intended for business strike coins  but changed later on due to a mint recommendation and thus why the bulk of the 5500 coins have this reverse. Said another way, 5500 coins are not an experiment. Experimental suggest that a design was not yet chosen but in this case the prototype reverse was chosen - just changed later on. 

While most Sacagawea Dollars found in the Cheerios promotional packaging were struck with a prototype reverse, in some instances regular issue coins have been found. Reports circulated that coins that were still in original packaging were being submitted for certification and were NOT the prototype variety. But of course, in the original packaging the reverse was not visible so how could one tell?  PCI was first to slab a coin in early 2005 from a Cheerios packaging and NOT of the prototype reverse, but it is said that no one took serious notice. PCGS announced May 16, 2008 that it also received coins in original packaging – unaltered, that were "non-prototype" Cheerios Dollars. Therefore, the total number of these coins that were struck is unknown and LESS than the reported 5500 making it even rarer that the reported mintages. It was then again that Mr. Delorey was able to examine multiple examples in their original packaging along with certified examples that he noticed an obverse diagnostic that held true for coins of the prototype reverse.

Obverse diagnostic markers on the prototype reverse coins of 2000, FS-902

(Photo Courtesy of Jeremy Katz/JKCoinPhotography.com used with permission)

In each case where there were die polish line next to the shoulder of the effigy – just under the P mint mark, the coins reverse was of the prototype. This find allowed holders of the original packaged Cheerios Dollars to now tell if they had the prototype reverse coin or not BEFORE taking it out of the cereal packaging or submitting for certification.

My 2000 Cheerios Dollars was still in its original packaging and hearing about the coins that proved to be not of the prototype reverse, I scurried about to see what I could find out. It was then that I found Tom Delorey’s obverse discovery and I couldn’t wait to examine mine to see what I had. I found it a bit hard to see with the coin still in the packaging, but when titling it slightly the light bounced off the irregularity and the die polish lines clearly showed. So was it truly a Prototype 2000 Sacagawea dollar?

My coin: The diagnostic die polish lines are just visible in this photo

I submitted the coin to NGC and held my breath. To my pleasure the coin was returned with an MS 67 Prototype Reverse certification by NGC.

The 2000 Prototype Sacagawea Golden Dollar is listed among the 100 Greatest Modern coins of all time and to me it is at the top of that list.  Population numbers seem to support this.

ANACS census numbers list 9:

Type Date Mint  Variety  Super 55 60  61  62  63  64   65  66  67  68  69  70   Total Graded

Sac   2000  P   Prototype Rev    2  0    0    0    2    0    0    1    2    1    0    0     8

Sac   2000  P   Prototype Rev    0  0    0    0    0   0     0    0    0    1    0    0     1 (Proof Like)

NGC census list only 42 coins.

NGC CENSUS DETAIL Last Updated: 12/31/2019 2000 P $1 PROTOTYPE REVERSE MS

2000 P $1 PROTOTYPE REVERSE MS PL

PCGS census number list: 123 coins

There are those coins that were in cheerios packaging that turned out to not be of the prototype reverse.  NGC list two (2) coins but PCGS shows none differentiated this way on their reports that I could find.

Given all the coins certified, it accounts for a total of only 176 coins, a mere 0.032% of the 5500 coins reported and placed in Cheerios boxes.  As a side note, 39 coins in GOLD (on 27mm planchets made of .9167 fine gold) were also produced from the prototype reverse and after examination for the best strike, all but 12 were destroyed. These 12 coins were put aboard Space Shuttle Columbia that went into space and upon their safe returned put together in a safe display appearing at an ANA show. Today they reside at Fort Knox and have been given the identifier of Judd J-2190. Where is the rest?

The whereabouts of the majority of these coins is simple to speculate, they were spent by the kids or adults that got them in the cheerios boxes they took home from the store – Not knowing that one of the rarest coin in modern time was in their hands.

Or, might this be another explanation. One place, according to the Miami Herald, where the Sacagawea dollar is not only liked, but preferred is Ecuador. By January 2000, their currency rate had slipped to a staggering 25,000 per dollar; it was at that point that Ecuador adopted the American dollar as its official currency. The Herald reports that, since 2002, the U.S. Mint has shipped nearly 150 million $1 coins, in both the Presidential and Sacagawea designs, to Ecuador. Could these also include coins that had circulated and thus contain the prototype reverses coins that were spent by the unsuspecting holder? The coins, whose weight gives them a feel of value, are widely preferred to American dollar bills. In interviews with Ecuadorian citizens, the Herald found a cafe worker who brings in about $120 per day, yet sees a paper dollar maybe once per week.

An interesting aspect of the story is that, of all the $1 coin designs, the Sacagawea dollar resonates with Ecuadorians the most. Much of the population has indigenous roots, and the image of a native woman with a baby strapped on her back is a familiar local image.

If you note in the ANCS census numbers, 2 coins were graded as AU 55. Might these have been coins that were found in circulation? The Federal Reserve Banks hold about $1.4 billion in $1 coins -- enough to meet the demand for the next 40 years. In fact, far more than half of all $1 coins ever minted are in government vaults. Last year, more $1 coins were returned to the Federal Reserve than were paid out. More business returned the unpopular coin than asked for them. So the government's stockpile actually grew. One possible source that issues these coins today in change is the US Postal Service, were in their stamp machines these coins are given in change when using bills in higher denomination than the stamp purchases but given the detail above many could be back in the Mints vaults.

Here is a bit of information and how I found mine.

There are cereal box collectors and the collecting of unopened boxes is of more value than those that are opened. I do not collect cereal boxes but being unaware at the time of the promotion and the use of coins in it, I looked to the cereal box collectors for a chance. In the case of this Cheerios promotion, I bid in and won an auction – hotly contest I might say for a unopened box and VAVOOM I got a dollar. I paid $156 for the box and that would have been a massive sum if all I had got was a 2000 dated cent which I kind of expected but it was a “Wind Fall” with the Dollar. It seems back than that I should have also bought lottery tickets as luck seemed to smile on me at the time.  I have looked recently and can find no unopened boxes for sale – maybe one will show in the future and I bet the bidding would be hot for it. At the time of the promotion it is now fitting to say if I had only known.

As the saying goes, “Knowledge is Power”  -- Enjoy the HUNT~n